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HELLENIC  HISTORY 


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TORONTO 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


BY 

GEORGE  WILLIS  BOTSFORD 

Author  of  "The  Development  of  the  Athenian  Constitution,'" 

"A  History  of  Greece,''    "A  History  of  Rome," 

"A    History    of  the    Ancient   World," 

■'The  Roman  Assemblies, ''  etc. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1926 

All  rights  reserved 

S3117 


Copyright,  1922, 
By   the    MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  March,  1922.      Reprinted 
August,  1922;  February,  June,  1923;  January,  1924;  January, 
November   192S  ;  November,  1926. 


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PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA    BY 
THE    BERWICK    &    SMITH    CO. 


IB  b'^ 

INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

The  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  present  in  brief  scope  the  evolu- 
tion of  Greek  civilization — a  culture  simple  in  its  essential  unity, 
although  seemingly  complex  in  its  many  and  wide  ramifications. 
In  the  conviction  that  the  chief  aim  of  history  is  to  explain  the  pres- 
ent, the  author  has  centered  his  attention  on  those  phases  of  Greek 
life  which  have  influenced  to  a  marked  degree  the  civilization  of  to- 
day. In  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  perhaps  more  than  of  any  other 
people  in  the  world's  history,  the  state  was  the  highest  embodi- 
ment of  social  and  cultural  life.  In  the  free  air  of  the  city-state 
the  liberty  loving,  Greek  found  not  alone  his  inspiration  but  untram- 
meled  opportunity  for  expression  and  development.  In  the  Athen- 
ian democracy  of  Pericles,  the  city-state  reached  its  logical  consum- 
mation; for  the  first  time  the  citizen  could  give  free  rein  to  his 
individualism.  The  successful  struggle  with  the  placid  yet  insi- 
dious civilization  of  the  Orient  gave  s'elf-confidence,  purpose,  and 
solidarity  to  Greek  life.  To  embryonic  genius  the  wealth  and 
broadening  influence  of  empire  furnished  boundless  opportunity  and 
inspiration.  In  coping  with  the  burdens  of  imperialism,  however, 
this  very  spirit  of  individualism  proved  a  serious  weakness.  Po- 
litical control  passed,  though  not  without  long  and  bitter  struggle, 
first  to  militaristic  Sparta,  and  then  in  turn  to  more  efficient  mas- 
ters— Thebes,  Macedon,  Rome.  It  is  tragedy  in  its  highest  form 
that  the  Greeks  reached  a  solution  of  their  political  problems  too 
late  for  rescue  from  foreign  domination.  And  yet  it  redounds  to 
the  glory  of  Greece,  that  in  spite  of  political  and  economic  vicis- 
situdes, the  artist  and  the  philosopher  continued  to  create  products 
of  even  greater  refinement  and  broader  humanism. 

The  narrative  has  been  based,  therefore,  on  the  story  of  political 
evolution.  However,  the  reader  will,  note  many  striking  omis- 
sions, particularly  in  regard  to  petty  squabbles  among  politicians 
and    states,    and    the    idealization    of   military   leaders.     In    accor- 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

dance  with  the  broadening  scope  of  history,  due  emphasis  has  been 
placed  on  economic  factors,  which  then  as  now  were  signposts  to 
political  or  military  policy.  Wherever  possible,  economic  and  poli- 
tical events  have  been  combined  in  a  continuous  narrative.  In 
other  instances  the  reader  is  guided  by  cross  reference  to  separ- 
ate treatments  of  important  agricultural,  industrial,  and  commercial 
changes.  In  the  sections  devoted  to  social  life  there  is  painted  an 
intimate  picture  of  the  everyday  life  of  the  leisure  class,  and  of 
the  toiler  in  town  and  country,  at  work  and  at  play. 

Cultural  achievement — wherein  we  moderns  see  the  chief  just- 
ification for  our  study  of  Greek  histor}' — has  been  treated  not 
only  as  to  growth  and  development,  but  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
Greek  life  and  character.  In  sliort  this  book  represents  an  ef- 
fort to  combine  political,  economic,  social,  and  cultural  history  in 
one  synthesis,  centering  attention  on  those  factors  which  h?ye  contri- 
buted essentially  to  modern  civilization. 

The  Hellenic  History  is  intended  to  serve  primarily  as  a  text- 
book for  college  courses  in  Greek  history,  and  as  a  guide  to  the 
reader  who  is  interested  in  one  or  more  phases  of  Greek  achieve- 
ment. For  more  detailed  treatment  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  list 
of  books  at  the  end  of  each  chapter.  Full  bibliographies  have 
been  provided  for  the  first  seven  chapters;  for  later  chapters  the 
lists  of  additional  readings  are  selective.  Those  readers  who  de- 
sire a  parallel  study  of  the  sources,  or  a  more  extensive  biblio- 
graphy, are  advised  to  consult  the  companion  volume,  Hellenic 
Civilization.^ 

In  the  preparation  of  the  manuscript  of  the  Hellenic  History 
for  publication,  the  editor  has  sought  to  maintain  the  author's 
high  standard  of  scholarship  and  accuracy.  In  so  far  as  he  has 
been  successful  in  this  endeavor,  he  is  obligated  largely  to  the  as- 
sistance of  many  friends.  In  particular,  he  gratefully  acknowl- 
edges his  debt  of  gratitude  to  two  former  students  of  the  author. 
Professor  Wallace  E.  Caldwell  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina, 
for  his  preparation  of  the  bibliographies,  and  for  his  assistance  in 
the  arduous  task  of  proof-reading,  and  to  Miss  Margaret  D.  Ban- 
croft,   Instructor   of   History   in  Wellesley   College,    for  her  pains- 

1  Botsford,    G.    W.,    and    Sihler,    E.    G.,    Hellenic    Civilization.    New    York,    Columbia 
University  Press,  1915. 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 

laking  work  in  the  selection  and  preparation  of  illustrative  ma- 
terial for  this  volume;  and  to  his  mother,  whose  constant  encour- 
agement, advice,  and  practical  assistance  have  made  possible  the 
publication  of  Dr.  Botsford's  last  work.  For  the  use  of  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  illustrative  material,  the  editor  is  indebted 
to  the  authorities  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  and  the 
Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  to  Mrs.  Elder  Marcus  of  Engle- 
wood,  N.  J.,  and  Mrs.  A.  C.  McGiffert  of  New  York  city,  to  Profes- 
sors Alice  Walton  and  Katherine  M.  Edwards  of  Wellesley  College, 
and  to  Professor  A.  V.  Williams  Jackson  of  Columbia  University. 
The  editor  desires,  furthermore,  to  express  his  thanks  to  Mr.  Edward 
A.  Bryant  of  Yonkers,  N.  Y.  for  his  compilation  of  the  Index,  to 
Mr.  Frederick  W.  Erb,  Miss  Adele  M.  Erb,  and  Miss  Isadore  G. 
Mudge,  of  the  Columbia  University  Library,  for  their  friendly  spirit 
of  cooperation,  and  finally  to  his  colleague.  Professor  Francis  G.  Al- 
linson  of  Brown  University,  for  many  friendly  suggestions  and 
criticisms. 

Jay  Barrett  Botsford. 
Brown  University, 
Providence,  R.  I. 
February  10,  1922. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     Country    and    People 1 

II.     The    Minoan    Age 8 

III.  The  Middle  Age:     Transition  from.  Minoan  to 

Hellenic  Lite 31 

IV.  Economic  Growth  and  Colonial  Expansion     .     52 

V.     Evolution  of  the  City-State,  Amphictyonies, 

AND    Leagues 69 

VI.     Crete,    Laced^mon,    and    the    Peloponnesian 

League 81 

VII.     Athens  :     From  Monarchy  to  Democracy    .     .  102 

VIII.     Intellectual    Awakening:       (I)      Social     and 

Literary  Progress 124 

IX.     Intellectual  Awakening:        (II)        Religious, 

Moral,  and  Scientific  Progress     .      .      .      .136 

X.     Conquest  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks  by  the  Lydians 

AND  THE  Persians  .........    158 

XI.     The  War  with  Persia  and  Carthage  ....    169 

XII.     The  Age  of  the  War  Heroes:     (I)    Political 

AND  Economic 190 

XIII.  The  Age  OF  the  War  Heroes  :      (II)  Society  and 

Culture 213 

XIV.  The  Age  of  Pericles:      (I)    Imperialism     .      .   234 

XV.     The    Age    of    Pericles:     (II)    The    Athenian 

Democracy 248 

XVI.     The  Age  OF  Pericles :      (III)  Society  and  Public 

Works .   258 

XVII.     The  Age  of  Pericles:     (IV)  Thought,  Culture, 

AND    Character 274 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVIII.     The  Peloponnesian  War  to  the  Beginning  of 

THE  Sicilian  Expedition  .      .      .      .      .      .      .300 

XIX.     The  Sicilian  Expedition  and  the  last  Years  of 

THE   War      ...      o      .......   316 

XX.     A   Cultural  Revolution      .      .      .      .      .      .      .329 

XXI.     The  Laced.-emonian  Empire  ani:  ::he  Ascendan- 
cy OF  Thebes .   352 

XXII.  Sicily  and  Magna  Gr.-ecia  .  .374 

XXIII.  The  Rise  OF  Macedon  TO  337  .  .381. 

XXIV.  Economy  and  Society    .      .      .      =      .      .      .      .394 
XXV.  Social  Aspects  of  the  State 411 

XXVI.     Art  and  Intelligence  in  the  Fourth  Century  .   423 

XXVII.     Alexander's  Empire  and  the  Hellenistic  King- 
doms        ........   445 

XXVIII.     The  Organization  and  Administration  of  the 

Hellenistic  States 461 

XXIX.     Hellenistic  Culture:     (I)   City  Construction 

AND  Art 475 

XXX.     Hellenistic      Culture:        (II)        Philosophy, 

Science,  and  Literature  .      .      ,.      .      .      .      .485 


FULL-PAGE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Acropolis    of    Athens Frontispiece 

Stand  for  Vase  :  Kamares  Ware 

Porcelain  Tablets  in  Forai  of  Houses    ......     \2 

Boar  Hunt:   Fresco,  Cnossus 14 

The  Great  Stairway,  Palace  of  Cnossus 

Siege  Scene:   Fragment  of  Vase   ........     20 

Artemis  Orthia 

Froim  the  Francois  Vase 

Fibul/E  .........      o     ...      o     .,     37 

Woman  Spinning 

A  Potter  at  Work 

Olive  Industry 

Agriculture ,      ...     54 

Armorers  making  Shields 

Smith's     Forge,     ........,,,..      56 

Trade  in  Silphium 

Penelope  at  the  Loom   ...........     65 

Temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  .........      79 

Pnyx 

Areopagus    ........    107 

Dionysus  Worship 

Persephone,  Triptolemus,  and  Demeter  ......    142 

Panathenaic  Amphora 

Jumper  and  Trainer  ............    147 

A  Persian  Archer 

Palace  of  Darius 163 

Delphi:     "Treasury  of  Athenians"   .......    176 

Barber  cutting  Hair 

Shoe  Shop  ...............   229 


FULL-PAGE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Painting  Pottery 

Ass   WITH   Load ,      o      .      .      .      .   260 

Parthenon       .      .      o .   269 

A  School 

Theatre  at  Epidauros    .      .      .      .      , 297 

Sophocles    .      .      , , 299 

Comedy 

Corinth 310 

Cybele 

Athena  Nike  Temple 336 

Erechtheum 350 

Battle  between  the  Gauls  and  the  Amazons 

Hermes  of  Praxiteles 428 

Dying  Gaul 

Altar  of  Zeus  at  Pergamum 476 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT 

Snake   Goddess 16 

The  Cup-Bearer:     Fresco,  Cnossus 17 

Mycen^an  Pottery 30 

Submarine-Ram 40 

Coin  of  Metapontum 

Coin   of   Aegina 52 

Menelaon 81 

Seventh   Century  Armor 102 

An  Ostrakon  cast  against  Themistocles    .      .      .      .      .123 

Alc^us  and  Sappho .  124 

Plan  of  Temple  at  Prinese 

Plan  of  Small  Temple 138 

"Maid   of   Athens" 140 

Tenean    Apollo 141 

Base    of    Tripod    ....      ...,,....  157 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT 

Marathon 169 

Fragments  of   the  Themistoclean  Wall    .      .      .      .      .190 

Charioteer  at  Delphi    , 232 

Coins:     Athena  and  Owl 234 

Athenian    Weight:     Public    Standard 247 

Dicast's   Ticket 257 

Parthenon    Frieze     ............   273 

Herodotus    ....'..., 274 

A    "Hermes" 328 

Socrates   ..........  329 

Coins  of  Epanimondas 352 

Monument  of  the  Knight  Dexileos 357 

Messene 358 

Syracusan  Coins 

Carthaginian  Coins 374 

Demosthenes 381 

Lion  of   Ch^ronea 393 

Monument  of  Lysicrates    .      .      .      . 410 

Alexander  Type  of  Coin     ..........   445 

Persepolis 460 

Ptolemy    Soter     ..............   461 

Ptolemy  Adekolys  and  Arsinoe 

Ach^an  League  Coins 474 

Darius  III  defeated  by  Alexander  in  the  Battle  of  Issus  .  484 

Epicurus „      .  485 

Greek  Steam  Boiler 492 

Tower,  of  the  Winds .  493 


MAPS  IN  COLOR 

Greece  for  Reference    .      .      (double   page) 

The  Minoan  Age 

The  Hellenic  World . 

Southern  Italy    ..,.,.... 

Persian  Empire  and  Greece 

Greece  at  the  Time  of  the  War  with  Persia 
Athenian  Empire  at  its  Height   .... 
Greece  in  the  Peloponnesian  War   . 
Empire  of  Alexander  the  Great  .... 
Kingdoms  Formed  from  Alexander's  Empire 


facing 
page 
1 


MAPS  IN  TEXT 

Physical  Greece  ........ 

Peloponnesian  League 

Athens  and  Peir/Eus  showing  Long  Walls 


5 
99 

235 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 

CHAPTER  I 

COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE 

In  the  history  of  the  Greeks  the  centre  of  interest  lies,  not  in  their 
peninsula,  but  jn  the  coasts  and  islands  of  the  Aegean  sea,  which 
collectively  formed  the  very  heart  of  Hellas.^  It  was  not  till  they  had 
passed  the  zenith  of  their  development  that  the  interior  and  north 
of  the  mainland  came  into  prominence.  For  their  beginnings  it  is 
instructive  to  take  note  of  their  situation  in  the  great  cultural  area 
which  borders  the  eastern  half  of  the  Mediterranean  sea.  In  this 
area  mankind  first  emerged  from  barbarism.  It  is  a  region  which 
at  the  dawn  of  history  was  especially  subject  to  immigration.  We 
may  infer,  then,  that  from  concentration,  added  to  natural  growth, 
the  population  became  too  dense  to  find  support  in  hunting,  fishing, 
and  gathering  wild  fruits  and  nuts.  The  productive  valleys  of  the 
Nile  and  the  Euphrates,  and  to  a  less  degree  the  small  alluvial  plains 
at  the  mouths  of  the  rivers  on  both  Aegean  coasts,  invited  to  agri- 
culture. From  tilling  the  soil,  however  rudely,  to  the  higher  stages  of 
civilization  the  way  was  comparatively  easy.^ 

This  development  was  favored  by  the  mild,  sub-tropical  climate. 
Less  enervating  than  the  equatorial  heat,  it  yet  rendered  life  far  easier 
than  is  possible  in  the  temperate  zones.  On  the  Mediterranean  shores 
men  need  less  food,  clothing,  and  shelter.  They  live  more  in  the 
open  air  in  social  contact  with  one  another.  Thus  their  struggle  for 
existence  is  not  all-absorbing;  they  have  more  leisure  to  devote  to 

1  In  this  volume  Greece  designates  the  Greek  peninsula,  Hellas  the  country  occupied  by 
the  ancient  Hellenes.     Greek  and  Hellenic,    Greeks  and  Hellenes  are  used  synonymously. 

2  Ancient  geographies  treat  of  topography,  climate,  soil,  products,  ethnology,  political 
conditions,  local  history  and  mythology,  occupations  and  manufactures.  Examples  are 
Strabo,  Geography,  and  Pliny,  Natural  History,  bks.  i-vi.  Remnants  of  other  geographers 
are  collected  in  Miiller,  C.,  Geographici  gracci  minores,  2  vols,  with  a  third  vol.  of  maps, 
Paris:  Didot,  1855.  Much  geographical  material,  too,  is  contained  in  the  historians,  as 
Herodotus,  Xenophon,  Polybius,  and  Diodorus.  In  fact  all  ancient  literature  abounds  in 
references  to  geographical  features  and  conditions.  Great  contributions  have  been  made  by 
modem  studies  and  books  of  travel.  Some  of  these  works  are  mentioned  at  the  close  of 
the  present  chapter. 


2  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

thought  and  to  the  creation  of  the  adornments  of  life  and  more  oppor- 
tunity for  discussion,  for  the  interchange  and  clarification  of  ideas. 

Communication  between  the  Aegean  region  and  the  Orient  was 
easy.  The  ships  of  Crete  sailed  south  but  a  short  way  to  Libya,  and 
thence  crept  along  the  coast  to  the  Delta.  The  Aegean  shores  are 
lined  with  harbors  well  adapted  to  the  small  vessels  of  early  time  — 
in  fact,  the  sea  between  these  coasts  is  itself,  so  to  speak,  a  great 
harbor  opening  to  the  Orient.  These  conditions  brought  southeastern 
Europe,  and  the  adjacent  Anatolian  coast, ^  into  closest  historical 
relations  with  the  East. 

Broadly,  then,  the  Aege;An  region  was  one  with  the  great  valleys  of 
the  Nile  and  Euphrates;  all  were  included  in  the  home  of  the  oldest 
civilization.  Within  this  wide  area,  however,  were  striking  contrasts 
of  geography,  hence  of  historical  growth.  The  Aegean  region,  on  the 
highway  of  migration  and  traffic  between  two  continents,  attracted 
strangers  of  diverse  race  and  genius;  and  these  immigrant  peculiari- 
ties combined  to  make  the  Greeks  extremely  versatile.  The  interac- 
tion, too,  of  strangers  upon  one  another,  their  rivalries  and  efforts  at 
mutual  adjustment,  provided  a  most  powerful  stimulus  to  progress. 
In  Babylonia,  on  the  other  hand,  this  force  was  less  operative  while 
in  Eg}'pt  it  existed  only  at  certain  crises.  Great  political  contrasts, 
too,  arose.  The  necessity  of  regulating  the  waters  of  the  Nile  and 
Euphrates  called  into  existence  vast  systems  of  cooperative  labor  en- 
forced by  an  absolute  king,  whereas  in  the  Aegean  world  the  division 
of  the  country  into  little  islands  or  on  the  mainlands,  diminutive 
plains  separated  by  high  mountain  ranges,  encouraged  the  grouping 
of  the  population  in  small  independent  communities.  The  conditions 
of  life  within  these  little  states,  together  with  the  reciprocal  relations 
among  them,  contributed  enormously  to  the  development  of  individual- 
ity and  intelligence.  The  genius  of  the  people  in  these  directions  was 
further  determined  by  the  mountainous  character  of  their  country.  In 
this  rugged  environment  a  man  could  readily  make  a  living  for 
himself  and  his  family  in  independence,  by  hunting  birds  and  beasts, 
pasturing  a  few  domestic  animals,  and  tilling  a  small  patch  of  ground. 
He  had  little  need  of  neighbors,  still  less  of  kings.  His  courage  he 
exercised  in  battle  with  the  wild  boar,  the  bear,  leopard,  and  lion. 
Against  any  force  likely  to  menace  his  home  he  could  depend  on  his 
strong  arm,  or  at  the  worst  on  flight  to  some  hidden  or  guarded  refuge, 

3  Anatolia  is  the  modern  name  of  Asia  Minor. 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE  3 

Hence  arose  his  fearlessness,  the  foundation  of  his  character.  On  the 
sole  basis  of  courage  rested  liberty  to  do  and  think;  on  liberty  rested 
intelligence  and  individuality. 

In  a  large  degree,  too,  the  nature  of  the  people  was  determined  by 
the  products  of  their  country.  Although  Greece  could  never  compare 
in  fertility  with  central  Europe,  England,  or  America,  it  was  far 
more  productive  anciently  than  now.  There  was  then  a  smaller  area 
of  bare  rock;  the  soil  was  thicker,  richer  and  better  supplied  with 
moisture.  Yet  even  in  earliest  times  it  was  but  a  lean  country  with 
its  thin  flesh  barely  covering  the  bones,  which  here  and  there  pro- 
truded nakedly.  High  mountain  tops  were  crowned  with  bald  rocks, 
bordered  with  a  fringe  of  alpine  plants.  Below  the  snow  line  grew 
forests  of  pine,  fir,  cedar,  oaks  of  several  kinds,  beech,  bay,  and 
some  wild  fruits  as  the  apple,  pear,  and  grape.  The  plane  and 
cypress  are  thought  to  l)e  importations,  and  the  chestnut,  walnut,  and 
almond  do  not  appear  till  late  in  history.  The  thin  woods  permitted 
the  growth  of  brush  and  grass,  which  pastured  domestic  animals. 
The  mountaineer  gave  his  chief  attention  to  rearing  pigs,  fattening 
them  on  the  abundant  acorns,  which  afforded,  too,  a  substantial  ele- 
ment of  the  family  diet. 

On  the  mountain  side,  below  the  forest  zone,^  lay  the  drier,  thinner- 
soiled  scrub-land,  covered  with  the  anemone,  asphodel  (hyacinth), 
myrtle,  juniper,  and  other  plants.  There  was  a  lack  of  berries,  but 
the  many  flowers  gave  food  to  bees  that  supplied  the  inhabitants  with 
their  sole  material  sweetness.  Over  this  zone  of  scrub  ruled  the 
shepherds  with  their  herds  of  sheep  and  goats,  that  perpetually 
nibbled  their  dry,  prickly  food,  and  furnished  the  more  refined  people 
of  the  valleys  with  leather,  wool,  milk,  and  meat.  For  the  protection 
of  their  flocks  and  pasture  rights  the  shepherds  became  war  lords, 
each  surrounded  by  an  army  of  savage  dogs.  The  winter  cold  drove 
them  to  encroach  on  the  neighboring  plains,  where  often  on  questions 
of  trespass  and  damage  they  waged  battle  with  the  tillers  of  the  soil. 
These  plains  lay  either  wholly  surrounded  by  mountains  or  between 
mountain  range  and  sea.  Here  the  soil,  none  too  good,  produced 
wheat  when  at  its  best;  otherwise  barley,  spelt,  and  millet.  Among 
the  vegetables  were  peas,  beans,  onions,  leeks,  and  garlic.  The  fruits 
were  apples,  pears,  quinces,  pomegranates,  figs,  grapes,  and  chief  of 

4  The  division  of  Greece  vertically  into  zones  of  vegetation  is  due  to  Myres.   J.  L.,  Greek 
Lands  and  Greek  People. 


4  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

all,  olives.  The  date-palm  grew  in  southern  Peloponnese  and  the 
neighboring  islands.  Olive  oil  was  used  for  food,  for  anointing  the 
body,  and  for  burning  in  lamps.  Flax  provided  oil  and  linen.  In 
addition  to  fowls  and  the  smaller  domestic  animals  the  farmers  reared 
donkeys,  mules,  and  occasionally  cows.  There  were  few  horses  except 
in  Boeotia  and  Thessaly;  and  everywhere  they  were  "  the  ornament 
of  luxurious  wealth,"  used  by  the  cavalry  in  war,  and  in  time  of  peace 
for  riding  and  driving,  but  never  as  beasts  of  burden.  Summarily, 
the  animal  and  vegetable  products,  far  from  effecting  a  surplus  of 
riches,  were  too  scant  to  support  meagerly  a  moderately  dense  popula- 
tion. If  a  leisurely  class  was  to  exist  and  a  high  degree  of  refinement 
to  be  attained,  the  Greeks  would  have  to  find  other  sources  of  wealth. 
Turning  from  farming  and  grazing  to  minerals,  we  discover  an 
almost  equal  lack  of  resources.  Euboea  produced  copper,  though 
not  nearly  enough  to  supply  the  demand;  and  for  tin,  a  necessary  in- 
gredient of  much-used  bronze,  the  Greeks  had  to  depend  wholly  on 
importations.  It  was  not  till  near  the  end  of  the  second  millennium 
B.  c,  that  they  began  to  use  iron  in  the  industries.  They  found  it  in 
Euboea  and  the  island  of  Seriphus,  and  far  more  abundantly  in  the 
mountain  range  of  Taygetus,  Laconia.  In  spite  of  this  restricted 
mining  area  the  yield  allowed  a  surplus  for  export.  Of  the  two 
precious  metals,  gold  must  have  been  relatively  abundant  and  easily 
obtained  in  the  Minoan  age,  though  we  do  not  know  where  was  the 
source  of  supply.  In  the  historical  period  it  was  found  in  the 
islands  of  Siphnos  and  Thasos  and  the  opposite  Thracian  coast. 
Doubtless,  however,  some  of  the  gold  used  by  the  Greeks  came  from 
foreign  lands.  Silver  was  mined  along  with  the  gold;  and  in  Attica 
Laurium  produced  it  with  lead.  In  building-stone  alone  is  all  Greece 
rich;  and  the  best  of  marbles  come  from  Mount  Pentelicus  in  Attica 
and  the  island  of  Paros.  In  the  fourth  century  the  Athenians  began 
to  derive  profit  from  its  exportation.  Last  but  not  least  in  importance 
were  the  clay  fields  distributed  over  all  Greece,  which  made  possible 
the  potter's  trade.  No  coal  was  mined,  and  even  now  within  the 
Mediterranean  basin  little  has  been  found  and  that  of  inferior  qual- 
ity. Wood  and  charcoal  supplied  the  heat  necessary  for  cooking  and 
the  industries.  The  natural  economic  resources,  however  varied, 
were  all  limited  in  quantity.  A  Greek  therefore  had  to  make  the 
best  use  of  his  scant  means,  to  study  economy.  Next  to  fearlessness 
and  love  of  liberty,  moderation  was  the  greatest  quality  of  the  race. 


6  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

This  principle  holds  not  only  for  eating,  drinking,  shelter  and  the 
other  material  things  of  life,  but  equally  for  literature  and  the  fine 
arts.  The  simple  self-restraint  of  Hellenism,  the  product  of  a  long, 
severe  training,  contrasts  with  the  redundance  of  means  employed  by 
all  other  European  artists  ancient  and  modern. 

Another  feature  of  Greece  which  bore  powerfully  on  character  is  to 
be  sought  in  the  lack  of  unity  between  coast  and  interior.  We  have 
seen  that  the  nature  of  the  country  —  its  division  by  waters  and  by 
high  mountain  ranges  into  islands  and  little  plains  —  prevented  the 
inhabitants  from  massing  together  in  large  social  and  political  groups. 
Exploitation  of  the  interior  and  the  north,  which  formed  their  "  back 
country,"  would  have  demanded  a  united  effort,  like  that  which 
brought  the  l^orth  American  colonies  under  a  single  government. 
But  this  region  was  crowded  with  mountains  inaccessible  and  repel- 
lent, which  forced  the  plain  and  coast  people  to  the  sea  as  their 
sphere  of  life  - —  to  colonization  and  commerce.  This  course  of  action 
still  further  stimulated  their  intelligence  and  enterprise,  but  tended 
even  more  to  decentralization.  Whereas  great  continental  undertak- 
ings call  for  unity,  a  single  city,  whether  Athens  or  Venice,  has  found 
it  easier  unhampered  by  political  dependence  to  create  a  great  naval 
power  and  an  extensive  commerce. 

The  factors  that  mould  character  thus  far  considered  are  in  whole 
or  part  economic.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  find  in  the  countr)' 
physical  features  which  acted  directly  on  the  mind.  First  of  all  is 
the  endless  variety,  contrasting  with  the  monotony  of  Egypt,  the  ever- 
changing  landscapes  which  made  for  versatility.  Whereas  the  Egyp- 
tians seem  to  us  like  so  many  slices  from  the  same  cheese,  we  find 
among  the  ancient  Greeks  as  great  differences  as  among  civilized 
men  of  the  whole  world  today.  There  was  no  typical  Greek.  The 
landscapes,  too,  are  always  suggestive.  Beyond  the  nearer  range  is 
another  higher,  and  the  one  still  further  away  presents  an  opening 
through  which  are  revealed  more  distant  heights.  Thus  the  imagina- 
tion is  tempted  forth  beyond  its  immediate  .surroundings,  to  embark 
on  voyages  of  mental  exploration.  The  l)cauty  it  meets  on  the  way 
is  not  sensuous,  inviting  to  eat,  drink,  and  sleep.  Rather  it  is  intel- 
lectual, appealing  to  the  noblest  faculties  of  man.  These  naked, 
jagged  mountain  heights,  be  it  noticed,  have  no  economic  value. 
They  do  their  part  in  awakening  a  love  of  beauty  for  its  own  sake, 
which  has  created  for  all  time  the  absolute  ideal  of  art.     Akin  is  the 


COUNTRY  AND  PEOPLE  7 

love  of  truth  for  its  own  sake,  that  noble  intellectual  ideal,  unmas- 
tered  by  thought  of  worldly  gain,  which  made  the  Greeks  the  dis- 
coverers of  the  principles  of  knowledge,  the  creators  of  science  and 
philosophy. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

I.  General  Works  of  Reference. —  Shepherd,  W.  R.,  Atlas  of  Ancient 
History  (Holt,  1913),  the  best  historical  atlas;  Kiepcrt,  H.,  Atlas 
Antiquus  (Boston:  Sanborn);  Murray,  Smaller  Classical  Atlas,  rev.  by  G.  B. 
Grundy  (Oxford  University  Press,  1904);  Whibley,  L.,  Companion,  ch.  i; 
Tozer,  Lectures  on  the  Geography  of  Greece  (London;  Murray,  1873);  Kiepert, 
Manual  of  Ancient  Geography  (Macmillan,  1881);  Smith,  William,  Classical 
Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography,  Mythology  and  Geography,  rev. 
by  G.  E.  Marindin  (London:  Murray,  1909). 

II.  Travel  and  Description. —  The  following  works  are  especially  attrac- 
tive and  stimulating :  Myres,  J.  L.,  Greek  Lands  and  the  Greek  People 
(Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1910)  ;  Zimmern,  A.  E.,  Greek  Commonwealth,  pt.  i; 
Mahaffy,  J.  P.,  Rambles  and  Studies  in  Greece  (Macmillan,  1878)  ;  Richardson, 
R.  B.,  Vacation  Days  in  Greece  (Scribner,  1904)  ;  Allinson,  F.  G.  and  A.  C.  E., 
Greek  Lands  and  Letters  (Houghton  Mifflin,  1909)  ;  Hogarth,  D.  G.,  Accidents 
of  an  Antiquary's  Life  (Macmillan,  1910)  ;  Marden,  P.  S.,  Greece  and  the 
Aegean  Islands  (Houghton  Mifflin,  1907);  Manatt  J.  I.,  Aegean  Days 
(Houghton  Mifflin,  1914);  Bosanquet,  Mrs.  R.  C,  Days  in  Attica  (London: 
Methuen,   1914). 

III.  Climate,  Products,  Topography,  Archaeology,  and  Folk  Customs 
of  Hellas. —  Olmstead,  A.  T.,  "  Climate  and  History,"  Journ.  of  Geog.  X.  5 
(1912);  Huntington,  E.,  Civilization  and  Climate  (Yale  University  Press, 
1915);  Jones,  W.  H.  S.,  Malaria  and  Greek  History  (Manchester,  1909); 
Schellenberg,  O.,  Studien  zur  Kliinatologie  Griechenlands  (Leipzig,  1908)  ; 
Meyer,  A.  B.,  "  Antiquity  of  the  Lion  in  Greece,"  Smithsonian  Annual  Report, 
1903,  p  661  ff. ;  Hehn,  V.,  Kidtur pfianzen  und  Hausthiere  in  ihrem  Uebergang 
aus  Asien  nach  Griechenland,  etc.  (11th  ed.,  Berlin,  1911);  Keller,  O.,  Die 
antike  Tierwelt,  2  vols.  (Leipzig,  1909,  1911);  Philippson,  A.,  Das  Mittelmeer- 
gebiet  (2d.  ed.,  Teubner,  1907)  ;  Oldfather,  W.  A.,  "Studies  in  the  History  and 
Topography  of  Locris,"  Am.  Journ.  Arch.,  1916,  pp.  32-66;  Woodhouse,  W.  J., 
Aetolia  (Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1897);  Kern,  O.,  Nordgriechische  Skizzen 
(Berlin,  1912)  ;  Brailsford,  H.  N.,  Macedonia.  Its  Races  and  their  Future 
(London:  Methuen,  1906);  Abbott,  G.  F.,  Tale  of  a  Tour  in  Macedonia 
(London:  Arnold,  1903);  Jackson,  F.  H.,  The  Shores  of  the  Adriatic,  2  vols. 
(London:  Murray,  1906);  Lenormant,  F.,  La  Grande-Grece,  3  vols.  (Paris, 
1881-84)  ;  Minns,  E.  H.,  Scythians  and  Greeks  (Cambridge  University  Press, 
1913);  Hogarth,  D.  G.,  The  Nearer  East  (Appleton,  1902);  Anderson,  J.  G. 
C,  Studia  Pontica,  I:  A  Journey  of  Exploration  in  Pontus  (London:  Owen, 
1903). 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  MINOAN  AGE 

Neolithic  age  to  3000  B.C.  Our  earliest  p;limpse  of  the  Aegean 
area  reveals  a  people  in  possession  of  the  neolithic  culture;  as  yet  they 
were  ignorant  of  the  metals  but  had  learned  to  polish  their  stone  im- 
plements with  a  view  to  increasing  the  cutting  power.  A  good  op- 
portunity for  the  study  of  progress  during  the  neolithic  age  is  afforded 
by  Cnossus,  Crete.  The  deposits  left  by  the  people  of  this  culture 
on  the  site  of  the  palace  there,  measuring  in  places  twenty  feet  in 
depth,  were  doubtless  accumulating  through  several  thousand  years. 
During  this  long  age  we  can  trace  the  slow  evolution  of  mankind  by 
the  fragments  of  pottery  which  still  survive.  In  the  lowest  stratum 
they  are  of  crude  clay  roughly  fashioned  by  hand.  Gradually  the 
potter  learned  to  purify  his  material,  to  mould  it  in  somewhat  more 
pleasing  forms,  and  to  fire  it  in  an  oven.  Meanwhile  he  was  making 
the  earliest  attempts  at  ornamentation.  The  first  step  was  to  scratch 
the  surface  with  angular  lines,  whence  developed  the  style  described 
as  geometric;  the  next  was  to  fill  the  incisions  with  a  white  chalky 
substance  —  the  beginning  of  vase  painting.  Other  varieties  of 
neolithic  earthenware  need  not  be  considered  here.^ 

Neolithic  life.  From  material  found  at  Cnossus  and  in  deposits  of 
the  same  age  elsewhere  we  learn  that  the  people  of  the  time  used 
stone  axes,  hammers,  and  knives  besides  many  utensils  of  bone  and 
horn.     Undoubtedly  their  chief  material  for  weapons  and  implements 

1  The  sources  for  the  Minoan  age  with  its  neolithic  antecedents  are  substantially  all  ar- 
chaeological. They  are  (1)  the  sites  of  settlements  in  these  ages,  including  topography  and 
excavated  strata,  (2)  the  objects  found  by  excavation  and  other  research,  stored  in  the 
museums.  The  principal  Minoan  collections  are  in  Candia,  Crete;  National  Museum, 
Athens;  British  Museum,  London;  and  Ashmolean  Museum,  Oxford.  There  are  a  few 
si>ecimens  in  the  museums  of  Boston  and  New  York.  Next  in  value  are  (3)  reports  of  ex- 
cavations, containing  illustrations  and  descriptions  of  the  objects.  The  most  important  are 
those  of  Dr.  Evans  and  others,  in  BSA.,  beginning  with  vol.  VI  (1899-1900).  For  Phaestus, 
Monuntenti  antichi,  beginning  with  XII  (1902).  For  other  sites,  Boyd,  H.,  Transactions 
of  the  Department  of  Archaeology,  University  of  Pennsylvania,  I  (1904),  for  her  excavations 
at  Gournia;  Seager,  R.  B.,  Exploration  in  the  Island  of  Mochlos:  American  School  of 
Classical  Studies  at  Athens,  1912;  Excavations  on  the  Island  of  Pseira  (University  Museum, 
Phila.,  1910);  Atkinson,  T.  D.  and  others.  Excavations  at  Philakopi  in  Melos  (Macmillan, 
1904);  Wace,  A.  J.  B  and  Thompson,  M.  S.,  Prehistoric  Thessaly  (Cambridge;  University 
Press,  1912);  Hall,  E.  H..  Excavations  in  Eastern  Crete,  Anthropc logical  Publications,  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania,  1913;  Dorpfeld,' W.  and  others,  Troja  u.ii  Ilion,  2  vols.  (Athens 
1902);  Frickenhaus,  A.  and  others,  Tiryns  (Athens,  1912).  For  illustrations  see  Maraghian- 
nis,  G.,  Antiquites  cretoiscs,  2  vols.  (Vienna,  1906,  1911).  Evans,  A.,  Atlas  of  Cnossian  An- 
tiquities (Macmillan),  is  promised. 

8 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  9 

was  wood,  all  of  which  however  has  perished.  At  first  they  clothed 
themselves  in  skins,  and  this  material  continued  down  into  historical 
Greece  in  the  dress  of  the  country  folk;  but  before  the  end  of  the 
age  the  chiefs  and  their  families  were  in  a  position  to  array  themselves 
in  woven  garments,  a  waist-cloth  for  men  and  a  skirt  for  women. 
In  earlier  times  they  lived  in  round,  rarely  oval,  huts  of  wattle  daubed 
with  clay;  only  in  course  of  centuries  and  in  favorable  conditions 
did  the  abode  become  a  rectangle  divided  into  several  rooms  and 
protected  with  walls  of  small  rough  stones.  In  their  light  boats  they 
rowed  freely  from  isle  to  isle  to  exchange  their  simple  wares.  The 
occurrence  of  a  similar  style  of  pottery,  not  only  over  the  Aegean  isles 
but  as  far  distant  as  Cyprus  and  Egypt,  proves  the  existence  of  com- 
merce throughout  this  extended  area.  It  is  the  connection  with  Egypt, 
whose  chronology  in  broad  outline  is  known  even  for  this  remote  time, 
which  enables  us  to  fix  the  date  for  the  close  of  the  neolithic  age  at 
about  3000.- 

Minoan  age.  3000-1200.  The  bronze  (or  more  strictly,  copper- 
bronze)  age,  which  developed  from  the  neolithic,  is  now  widely  known 
as  Minoan,  after  Minos,  a  legendary  king,  or  perhaps  a  god,  of  Crete. 
Dr.  Evans,  the  explorer  of  Cnossus,  divides  the  Minoan  age  into  three 
periods  Early,  Middle,  and  Late.  In  the  present  volume  the  term 
Mycenaean  will  be  treated  as  equivalent  to  "  Late  Minoan."  ^ 

Early  Minoan  (Copper)  age.  3000-2200.  In  the  beginning  of 
the  Early  Minoan  age  the  potter  invented  a  black  glaze  for  washing 
his  wares.  On  the  lustrous  surface  thus  produced  he  painted  wide 
bands  in  white,  or  rarely,  red.  Sometimes  he  left  to  the  surface  its 
natural  buff,  whereon  he  placed  black-glaze  stripes.  These  elements 
of  art  continued  down  to  historical  Greece.  Gradually  the  moulding 
and  painting  attained  freedom  and  variety.  As  the  pointed  instru- 
ment yielded  to  the  brush,  zigzags  naturally  developed  into  curvilinear 
and  simple  spiral  designs.  Here,  too,  appears  the  first  evidence  of 
the  potter's  wheel.  Slowly  followed  the  effort  to  express  the  forms  of 
living  things,  all  in  geometric  style.     The  human  body  was  represented 

2  The  beginning  of  the  neolithic  age  is  variously  dated  from  12000-10000  B.  c.  to  5000- 
4000  B.  c.  The  oldest  neolithic  objects  discovered  in  Thessaly  mav  be  somewhat  earlier 
than  those  of  Crete.  For  neolithic  pottery,  Mackenzie,  JHS.  XXIII.  158  ff.;  Mosso,  Med. 
Civ.  117-21;  Dussaud,  36-8.  Dress;  Dussaud,  62  f.,  208  (ill.);  Mosso,  185-94;  Breuil, 
Anthropologic,  1909,  p.  17,  fig.  9.  Round  hou.se;  Dawkins,  BSA.  XI.  263.  The  presence 
of  ivory  shows  contact  with  Egypt.—  Other  parts  of  Europe  were  contemporaneously  in 
the    neolithic   stage,    but   somewhat    less   advanced;    cf.    Meyer,    Gesch.    d.   Alt.    I.    731  f. 

3  Minos  may  have  been  a  god  (Bethe,  Rhein  Mus.  LXV.  214  ff. ),  whom  the  Greeks  re- 
membered as  a  king.  The  use  of  the  word  Minoan  is  justified  by  the  great  number  of 
cities  of  that  age  named  Minoa. —  In  some  modem  authors  Mycenaean  is  equivalent  to 
Late  Minoan  III   1400-1200   (or  1100). 


10  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

by  two  triangles,  the  points  coming  together  at  the  girdle.  The  legs 
and  arms  were  little  more  than  lines.  Equally  crude  are  the  statu- 
ettes, presumably  idols,  of  the  same  age.  In  the  carving  of  stone 
vessels,  however,  the  artist  reached  perfection.* 

Melos.  A  leading  centre  of  culture  in  this  period  was  the  island 
of  Melos.  Here  were  quarries  of  obsidian,  a  hard,  volcanic  rock, 
which  splits  readily  into  thin  blades,  and  was  therefore  especially 
serviceable  for  knives,  razors  and  all  sharp-bladed  or  sharp 
pointed  instruments.  By  exporting  wares  of  the  kind  in  great  quan- 
tities to  neighboring  lands  the  Melians  grew  relatively  prosperous. 
Hence  they  were  able  to  make  progress  in  the  comforts  of  life.  Next 
after  them  followed  the  inhabitants  of  the  neighboring  Cyclades,  and 

in  fact  their  influence  was  felt  from  the  coast  of  Argolis,  Greece,  to 
Troy  in  Asia  Minor. ^ 

Dwellings  and  tombs.  In  this  period  the  rectangular  house 
became  larger,  more  substantial,  and  better  furnished.  Many  a 
chieftain  must  have  had  his  palace,  but  the  one  at  Troy  is  best 
known  to  us.  This  site  had  been  occupied  in  the  transition  to  the 
bronze  age,  and  the  settlement  of  which  we  now  speak  is  the  second. 
The  essential  element  of  the  palace  is  a  great  hall  (megaron)  with  a 
central  hearth.  From  this  room  we  pass  through  a  door  into  a 
vestibule  formed  by  the  projecting  walls,  and  from  there  into  a  large 
open  court.  This  type  of  dwelling  originated  in  central  Europe.  The 
same  plan  is  afterward  found  on  a  more  complex  scale  in  the  palace 
at  Tiryns.  In  exposed  places  from  the  beginning  of  the  age  men  were 
wont  to  fortify  their  settlements  with  rude  walls  of  uncut  stones, 
whereas  other  cities,  like  those  of  Crete,  remained  unprotected. 

Copper;  pictographs.  The  great  innovation  of  the  age  was  the 
introduction  of  copper,  most  probably  from  Egypt  and  Cyprus.  It 
was  used  for  tools  and  weapons.  Silver  and  gold  became  known  in 
the  same  period.  Copper  was  followed  at  an  interval  of  centuries  by 
bronze.  For  a  long  time,  however,  stone  maintained  its  place  in 
the  useful  arts.  Equally  important  was  the  adoption  of  a  system  of 
picture  writing,  pictographs.  They  are  found  in  Crete  on  seals  of 
ivory,  stone,  and  other  material  in  the  form  of  cylinders,  buttons,  and 
prisms.  Their  near  resemblance  to  Egyptian  types  proves  an  inter- 
course between  these  two  countries  in  the  age  of  their  production. 

4  For   illustrations   of   the   pottery.   Hall,    Decorative  Art   of   Grecc    in   the   Bronze   Age, 
6-10.    Group   of  primitive   idols;   Dussaud,   361.    Stone  vases;   Seager,   Mochlos,   11. 
0  Pictures  of  obsidian  objects;   Dussaud,  98. 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  11 

Other  wares  were  exchanged  in  this  period,  and  Egyptian  records 
mention  the  Aegean  folk  by  name.  It  is  this  commerce  which  en- 
ables us  to  set  the  closing  date  of  the  Early  Minoan  age  at  about 
2200.« 

Area  of  the  culture.  In  this  period  the  Aegean  civilization  ex- 
tended from  the  Cyclades  to  Troy  and  Cyprus,  and  in  the  opposite 
direction  to  the  coasts  of  Greece.  There  were  many  local  varieties 
of  culture.  Although  early  in  the  age  Troy  and  the  Cyclades  had 
the  lead,  Trojan  progress  was  checked  by  the  destruction  of  the  city, 
whereas  the  islands  continued  their  advance.  In  Crete  the  eastern 
towns  were  the  most  progressive.  Meanwhile  the  Aegean  folk  were 
carrying  their  products  to  Egypt,  as  stated  above,  and  in  other  direc- 
tions to  the  valley  of  the  Danube  and  to  Sicily  and  southern  Italy. ^ 

Middle  Minoan  (First  Bronze)  age.  2200-1600.  Toward  the 
close  of  the  third  millennium  u.  c.  central  Crete  came  decidedly  to  the 
front.  This  change  marks  the  beginning  of  the  Middle  Minoan 
period.  The  chief  seats  of  culture  were  Cnossus  and  Phaestus. 
Near  Phaestus  the  modern  village  of  Hagia  Triada  marks  a  third 
important  site.  The  east  was  occupied  by  lesser  cities,  whereas  in 
the  west  of  the  island  no  remains  of  the  age  have  as  yet  been  un- 
earthed.* 

The  Minoan  civilization  now  entered  upon  its  most  brilliant  period. 
The  invention  of  the  wheel  enabled  the  potter  to  develop  his  trade 
into  a  fine  art.  The  most  beautiful  specimens  are  of  the  Kamares 
type  —  so-named  after  the  cave  on  Mount  Ida,  where  they  were  first 
discovered.  The  clay,  reduced  to  the  utmost  purity,  was  moulded  in 
artistic  forms.  In  the  egg-shell  thinness  of  their  walls  they  may 
be  compared  with  the  best  Haviland  china  of  today.  The  painted 
designs  on  them  are  in  various  shades  of  white,  orange,  crimson,  and 
yellow,  developing  from  the  two  main  color  classes  of  the  preceding 
age.  The  aim  was  not  the  representation  of  nature  but  the  creation 
of  a  brilliant  harmony  of  colors.  In  time,  however,  the  polychrome 
ornamentation  gave  way  to  the  simpler  principles  of  the  earlier  age, 
while  there  developed  a  close  imitation  of  natural  objects.     Equally 

G  Copper  daggers;  Dussaud.  -41,  fig.  22.  The  daggers  of  the  Early  Minoan  age  contain 
at  most  but  i.287o  of  tin,  and  may  therefore  be  described  as  copper.  In  the  Middle  Mi- 
noan age  the  tin  alloy  has  increased  to  8-10%,  thus  producing  real  bronze,  Hazzidakis,  BSA. 
XIX.  47;  cf.  Mosso,  Med.  Civ.  105  (one  thousandth  part  of  certain  Minoan  daggers  at 
Rome  is  zinc  and  lead). 

7  Extent  of  the  culture;  Meyer,  Cesch.  d.  Alt.  I,  694  f.  Commerce;  Mosso,  Med.  Giv.  ch. 
xxiv. —  Early   Egyptian   Name   of  the   Minoans,   Hanebu,   Dussaud,   452. 

8  Among  the  East-Cretan  sites  already  excavated  are  Gournia,  Zakro,  Palaikastro,  and 
the   island  of   Mochlos. 


STAND  FOR  VASE:    KAMARES   WARE 
(From  Palaiokastro,  Crete) 


///////////  ^/^///n^/Z/zTuH 


PORCELAIN  TABLETS  IN  FORM  OF  HOUSES 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  13 

naturalistic  are  the  patterns  in  faience  for  which  the  close  of  the  Mid- 
dle Minoan  period  is  famous.'' 

Palaces;  Writing.  Early  in  the  age  the  kings  of  Cnossus  and 
Phaestus  built  great  j)alaces.  After  tv;o  or  three  centuries  they  were 
destroyed  or  fell  to  ruin,  whereupon  the  kings  proceeded  to  erect  new 
dwellings  on  a  grander  scale.  The  interior  walls  they  decorated  with 
frescoes  from  human  life  and  nature.  Within  the  Cnossian  palace 
the  art  of  writing  reached  a  high  stage  of  development.  From  the 
original  pictographs  arose  a  linear  script,  in  which  some  characters 
are  doubtless  ideographs,  denoting  things  rather  than  sounds  or 
groups  of  sounds,  whereas  others  seem  to  represent  syllables.  Royal 
archives  of  clay  tablets  indicate  its  use  for  governmental  business. 
The  old  system  of  writing  continued  by  the  side  of  the  new.  In  the 
deposits  which  close  the  age  the  excavator  of  Phaestus  found  a  clay 
disk  covered  on  both  sides  with  pictographs,  evidently  stamped  on 
the  clay  while  still  soft,  and  representing  therefore  the  first-known 
printing  with  movable  types.  As  the  characters  are  quite  different 
from  the  Minoan,  the  disk  evidently  came  from  some  outlying  region, 
perhaps  Asia  Minor.^°  -    ■  ,,,  -,  ^  — . 

Late  Minoan  (Mycenaean)  age.  1600-1200.  In  the  beginning 
of  the  late  Minoan  age  Cretan  civilization,  having  achieved  its  utmost, 
began  to  stagnate ;  it  no  longer  created  new  forms  but  merely  repeated 
stereotyped  conventions.  For  a  time,  however,  we  find  a  political 
advance.  Cnossus  and  Phaestus  still  flourished  while  other  cities 
declined  and  disappeared.^^  It  would  perhaps  accord  best  with  the 
facts  to  suppose  that  the  king  of  Cnossus  now  ruled  th£  whole  island 
and  made  use  of  Phaestus  as  a  secondary  capital. 

The  Cnossian  palace  attained  to  the  acme  of  its  grandeur  about 
1500.  To  this  period  belong  most  of  the  mural  frescoes  still  pre- 
served. In  vase  ornamentation  the  characteristic  development  was 
the  "  palace "  style,  which  sacrificed  the  natural  to  a  desire  for 
decorative  unity.  The  age  attained  great  skill  in  bronze  work 
and  in  inlaying  metals  with  other  substances.  In  writing,  linear 
script  superseded  the  pictograpns,  and  a  new  and  improved  linear 
style  developed  from  the  old.^^ 

9  Polychrome  pottery;  Dawkins  and  Laistner,  BSA.  XIX.  1  ff. ;  Mackenzie,  JHS.  XXIII. 
170  ff:;  XXVI.  243  ff . ;  Dawkins,  op.  cit.  XXIII.  248  ff.  Illustrations  in  colors;  Dussaud, 
fro7ttis piece  and  opp.  p.  48;  Seager,  Mochlos,  plates;  JHS.  XXIII,  XXVI,  plates.  The 
Minoans  of  this  age  are  the  Keftiu  of  Egyptian  records;  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  230  f. 

10  Evans,  Scripta  Minoa,  I.  273  ff. 

11  As  Gournia,  Zakro,  and  Palaikastro. 

12  A  monumental  work  on  the  Minoan  script  is  Evans.  Scripta  Minoa  (1909),  the  second 


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THE  MINOAN  AGE  15 

Throughout  the  Early  and  Middle  Minoan  ages  the  Greek  penin- 
sula lagged  far  l)ehind  the  Aegean  isles  in  culture.  During  nearly 
all  this  time  Thessaly  and  Boeotia  remained  neolithic,  and  farther 
south  the  peninsula  made  but  little  progress  beyond  this  condition. 
A  great  change  came  with  the  beginning  of  the  Late  Minoan  time; 
in  fact  this  age  had  not  advanced  far  when  the  leadership  in  culture 
shifted  to  Troy  and  still  more  to  Greece,  where  Tiryns,  Mycenae,  and 
Orchomenus  were  entering  upon  an  era  of  artistic  and  political 
splendor. 

Life  in  Crete  and  Mycenae.  2000-1400.  The  abundance  of 
material  that  has  reached  us  from  the  Middle  Minoan  and  early 
Mycenaean  ages  affords  a  clear  and  comprehensive  view  of  the  life  of 
those  times.  The  dominant  racial  type  was  a  long  skull,  oval  face, 
brown  complexion,  black  hair,  and  short  stature  —  the  physique  of 
the  south  Italian  or  Sicilian  of  today.  These  people  were  thin  and 
wiry  with  "  wasp-waists,"  lively  in  action,  dependent  on  agility  rather 
than  bulk,  a  keenly  competitive  folk  gifted  with  a  delicate  aesthetic 
taste  and  an  intuitive  mind.^^ 

Dress.  Usually  a  man  wore  simply  a  cloth  fastened  at  the  girdle 
and  covering  the  hips.  Sometimes  this  dress  was  so  modified  as  to 
form  short  trousers.  With  a  close-fitting  belt  he  accentuated  the 
smallness  of  his  waist.  The  priestly  and  holiday  attire  was  an 
ample  cloak  which  reached  from  neck  to  ankles.  The  Cretan's  black 
hair  fell  over  his  shoulders  in  long  curls;  his  face  was  beardless, 
whereas  at  Mycenae  it  was  fashionable  to  allow  the  free  growth  of 
whiskers.  The  woman  wore  a  low  bodice  and  a  bell-shaped  skirt 
abundantly  adorned  with  ruffles  or  flounces.  Favorite  colors  were 
yellow,  purple,  and  blue.  Her  black  hair  she  dressed  elaborately  in 
twists  and  curls,  while  the  whiteness  of  her  face  she  intensified  by 
artificial  means.  She  either  left  the  head  bare  or  surmounted  it 
with  a  hat,  some  of  whose  designs  closely  resemble  those  of  today. 
In  addition  to  these  essentials  of  dress,  she  profusely  adorned  her- 
self with  jewels  of  gold  and  precious  stones.  Altogether  her  attire 
was  extremely  conventional  and  modish;  her  pictures  in  ancient  art 
find  their  counterpart  in  modern  fashion  plates.     The  foot-gear  of 

volume  of  which  has  not  yet  appeared.  See  also  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.,  ch.  viii;  Sundwall,  J., 
Jahrb.  arch.  hist.  XXX  (1915),  41-64.  The  later  linear  system  (class  B)  is  mainly  a  sim- 
plification of  the  earlier  (class  A) ;  and  the  Cyprian  script,  from  the  fourteenth  to  the  third 
century  B.  C,  is  a  further  simplification  of  the  Minoan  systems.  Cyprian  writing,  which  is 
syllabic,  was  adopted  by  the  Greek  colonists  of  that   island ;    p.   35. 

13  The  fact  of  a  Mediterranean  race,  first  set  forth  by  Sergi,  Mediterranean  Race,  (1892), 
is  generally  accepted  by  scholars. 


16 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


both  sexes  was  elaborated 
with  embroidery  and  deli- 
cate colored  bindings.^* 

Dwellings.  Like  the  fem- 
inine garb  of  the  age, 
the  private  dwellings  of  the 
wealthy  were  surprisingly 
modern.  They  were  built 
on  no  fixed  plan,  but 
followed  the  necessities  of 
the  site  and  the  taste  of  the 
owner.  They  were  of 
stone,  wood,  or  brick, 
and  their  windows  seem  to 
have  been  protected  by 
oiled  and  tinted  parchment. 
Some  were  three  or  four 
stories  high  and  comprised 
a  multitude  of  rooms.  The 
owners  furnished  them 
comfortably  and  developed 
cooking  to  a  high  degree  of 
perfection. ^^ 

Palace.  Naturally  the 
palace  was  incomparably 
larger  and  more  magnificent 
than  the  richest  private 
dwelling.  The  residence  of 
the  king  of  Cnossus 
occupied  more  than  five 
acres  and  stood  at  least  four 
stories  high.  Its  irregular- 
ity of  plan  may  be  due  to 
additions  and  modifications 
by  successive  rulers.  The 
essential  feature  of  any  large  Cretan  dwelling,  private  or  royal,  is 

14  Dress;  Hawes,  Crete,  26-9,   118  f . ;   Mosso,  Palaces,  ch.   vi;  Dussaud,  60  ff . ;   Abrahams, 
Creek  Dress,  3  ff. ;  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  233  ff. ;  Tsountas  and  Manatt,  Myc.  Age,  ch.  vii. 

15  Bosanquet   and   Dawkins,    BSA.    VII.    134   ff.    (at   Zakro) ;    VIII.    14   ff.    (at    Cnossus); 
Rider,  Creek  House,  ch.  xiii;  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  113-8;  Mosso,  Palaces,  287-308. 


SNAKE  GODDESS 
(Boston    Museum    of    Fine    Arts) 


THE  MINOAN  AGE 


17 


the  grouping  of  rooms  about  a 
court.  The  Cnossian  palace 
comprised  an  immense  central 
court,  smaller  courts,  long 
corridors,  a  theatral  space, 
audience  rooms,  sanctuaries,  an 
industrial  quarter,  and  "a 
system  of  drainage  not  equalled 
in  Europe  between  that  day  and 
the  nineteenth  century."  We 
may  notice  more  particularly  the 
room  in  which  the  throne  of 
gypsum  stands  against  the  wall 
and  is  flanked  on  both  sides 
with  long  benches  of  the  same 
material.  Here  in  the  midst  of 
his  noble  councillors  sat  the 
king  on  the  "oldest  throne  in 
Europe,"  presumably  to  receive 
embassies  and  to  transact  busi- 
ness with  his  subjects.  The  in- 
dustrial quarter  swarmed  with 
artists  and  artisans,  whose 
labors  extended  over  a  wide 
range  of  activities,  from  the 
preparation  and  storage  of  wine 
and  olive  oil  in  huge  earthen- 
ware jars  to  the  finest  gold  work 
and  elaborate  mural  frescoes. 
One  chamber,  fitted  up  with 
benches  and  "a  seat  for  the  mas- 
ter," is  thought  to  be  a  school 
room,  in  which  the  young 
learned  to  mould  clay  into  little 
tablets,  and  inscribe  them  with 
linear  writing.  Elsewhere  were 
the  archives  in  which  these 
tablets  were  stored  by  the  thousands.  Although  the  script  has  not  yet 
been  deciphered,  the  inscriptions  thus  far  discovered  seem  to  be 
accounts  of  stores  and  of  receipts  and  dues.     A  larger  tablet  from  the 


THE  CUP-BEARER:  FRESCO, 
CNOSSUS 
(Reproduction— The  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum of  Art) 


18  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Dictaean  cave  has  the  appearance  of  a  list  of  offerings.  If  the 
Cretans  possessed  a  literature  of  songs,  epics,  and  chronicles,  as 
is  not  unlikely,  it  must  have  been  written  on  perishable  material, 
for  nothing  of  the  kind  has  been  discovered.  It  is  known,  how- 
ever, that  they  had  the  decimal  notation  and  perhaps  as  many 
as  four  systems  of  weights,  including  the  two  most  used  in  his- 
torical Greece.  By  dropping  a  definite  weight  of  silver  or  gold 
upon  a  striated  surface  they  took  the  first  step  in  the  coinage  of  these 
metals.  Bronze  ingots,  too,  of  definite  weight  were  stamped  that 
they  might  serve  as  currency.^ ** 

Workmen  and  their  products.  Many  laborers  busied  themselves 
with  tilling  the  soil  and  with  rearing  cattle,  sheep,  goats,  and  swine. 
They  ground  their  barley  or  wheat  in  querns  or  crushed  it  in  stone 
mortars  still  preserved.  Among  their  fruits  were  the  fig  and  the 
olive,  whose  oil  entered  into  the  preparation  of  food.  Trades  were 
specialized  as  in  the  Orient.  Among  the  craftsmen  were  potters, 
brickmakers,  and  carpenters,  whose  bronze  saws,  axes,  files,  and  other 
tools  resemble  in  pattern  those  of  today.  Naturally  in  an  age  of 
bronze  the  workers  in  that  metal  filled  a  large  place.  Stone,  while 
still  serving  the  lesser  arts,  had  become  the  essential  of  architecture, 
and  throughout  all  history  wood  has  furnished  a  convenient  material 
for  building  and  for  a  great  variety  of  furniture.  Among  the  most 
remarkable  of  skilled  industries  was  the  cutting  and  engraving  of  pre- 
cious stones  which  included  practically  all  known  to  the  moderns, 
excepting  the  diamond.  On  these  gems  the  engraver  skilfully 
wrought  varied  scenes  from  nature  and  human  life.  The  highest  de- 
velopment ot  art  is  found  in  the  work  of  the  goldsmith,  an  achieve- 
ment of  the  painstaking  experience  of  centuries.  This  metal  was  then 
more  common  than  silver.  Among  his  products  were  beads  adorned 
with  scenes  in  intaglio  and  rings  with  similarly  decorated  bezels  used 
as  seals.  He  could  inlay  gold,  as  well  as  ivory  and  other  material, 
on  bodies  of  different  substance,  so  as  to  produce  a  polychrome  effect. 
He  wrought  bracelets,  diverse  artistic  patterns  in  repoussee  on  thin 
plate,  and  graceful  drinking  cups.     Famed  for  beauty  are  the  two 

ir,  Palace;  Hall,  Arg.  Arch.  118  ff . ;  Mosso,  Palaces  chs.  ii,  v;  von  Lichtenberg,  Haus, 
Dorf,  Stadt,  71  ff.  Theatre;  Evans,  BSA.  IX.  99  ff.  Drainage;  Evans,  BSA.  Vlll.  13  f . ; 
Hawes,  Crete,  32.  Throne;  Evans,  BSA.  VI.  35-42.  Industrial  quarter;  Hawes,  Crete,  ch. 
iii.  School;  Evans,  BSA.  VII.  96  ff.  Archives;  op.  cit.  100  ff . ;  Scripta  Minoa,  I.  38  ff. 
Weights  and  currencv;  Evans,  in  Corolla  Nuwismatica.,  (Oxford  University  Press,  1906), 
336-67;  Head,  Histori'a  Numorum,  p.  xxxix;  Regling,  in  PWK.  VII.  973  ff. 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  19 

gold  cups   from  a  boihive  tomb   at  Vaphio,  Laconia.     The   scenes 
which  adorn  them  are  bold,  spirited,  and  lifelike. ^^ 

Warfare.  In  war  the  rank  and  file  were  without  defensive  armor 
and  carried  the  slinji;  and  bow.  In  the  latter  art  the  Cretans  were 
especially  strong,  as  we  infer  from  the  magazine  of  bronze  arrow- 
heads in  the  Cnossian  palace;  in  fact  throughout  ancient  history  they 
kept  the  lead  in  archery.  A  warrior  of  the  better  class  protected  him- 
self with  a  huge  shield  which  reached  from  neck  to  ankles.  It  was 
made  of  leather  stretched  on  a  wooden  frame,  in  form  a  semi-cylinder 
or  an  oval  with  notched  sides.  A  helmet  and  greaves  completed  the 
defensive  armor,  whereas  he  assailed  his  foe  with  a  short  dagger,  a 
sword  for  thrusting,  and  a  lance,  the  metal  parts  of  bronze.  Unable 
to  carry  far  the  great  weight  of  his  shield,  he  rode  to  battle  in  a  two- 
wheeled  chariot  drawn  by  a  pair  of  horses.  With  him  as  charioteer 
rode  his  squire,  who  sometimes  carried  a  sword.  Using  his  chariot 
merely  for  conveyance,  the  warrior  descended  in  battle  to  engage  in 
close  combat  with  his  foe.  Not  only  many  weapons  have  survived, 
but  also  pictures  of  military  life.  We  see  warriors  engaged  in  hand- 
to-hand  combat,  while  fragments  of  a  silver  vase  present  a  living  view 
of  a  siege.  On  the  large  piece  illustrated  in  the  text  we  see  outside 
the  walls  slingers  and  bowmen  in  action.  Behind  them  stand  two 
men  probably  elders,  like  those  described  by  Hesiod  on  the  Shield 
of  Heracles  (246  f.) :  — 

"  To  the  blessed  gods 
Their  hands  uplifted  for  their  fighting  sons. 
On  the  tower  above  excited  women  shriek." 

Smaller  fragments  show  fallen  warriors  outstretched,  others  carrying 
the  dead,  and  others  hurling  lances.^* 

City  Walls.  The  Cretan  cities  were  unwalled.  As  a  defence 
against  strangers  they  had  their  navy,  and  like  the  later  Spartans  they 
must  have  reposed  confidence  in  their  bulwarks  of  brave  warriors. 
In  more  exposed  positions,  however,  as  at  Troy,  men  were  accus- 
tomed from  the  beginning  of  the  Minoan  age  to  protect  their  settle- 

17  Domestic  animals  are  indicated  by  survivals  of  bones  and  by  representations  in  art. 
Peas  and  barlev  have  been  preserved  to  the  present  day  in  jars.  Olive  press;  Evans,  BSA. 
VII.  82  f. ;  VIII.  8  f.  Craftsmen;  Mosso,  Palaces,  ch.  vii.  Gold,  found  abundantly  in 
Mycenae,  is  lacking  in  Cnossus.  On  this  metal,  Tsountas  and  Manatt,  Myc.  Age,  "  Gold  " 
in  Index.     Inlaying;   op.  cit.  227  f.     Vaphio  cups,   interpretation   by  Mosso,   Palaces,  223  ff. 

18  Warfare;  Tsountas  and  Manatt,  Myc.  Age,  ch.  viii;  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  242  ff.  Arsenal 
of  arrow  heads;  Evans,  Scripta  Minoa,  I.  44.  Chariot;  Hall,  op.  cit.  142  f.  (introduced 
from  Egypt  about  1550;. 


THE  GREAT  STAIRWAY,   PALACE 
OF  CNOSSUS 


SIEGE  SCENE:     FRAGMENT  OF  VASE 
(From  Sejinour,  Lije  in  the  Homeric  Age) 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  21 

ments  with  walls.  Gradually  the  crude  wall  of  unshaped  stones  was 
superseded  by  massive  masonry  such  as  we  find  at  Tiryns.  There  the 
defences  are  of  huge,  slightly  dressed  stones  arranged  roughly  in 
layers  and  held  together  by  mortar.  The  interstices  are  filled  with 
smaller  stones.  This  is  the  so-called  Cyclopean  masonry.  Orig- 
inally the  Tirynthian  wall  must  have  risen  to  a  height  of  sixty  feet, 
the  upper  part  of  brick.  In  the  present  ruins,  on  the  south  and  south- 
east, are  two  great  galleries,  covered  by  a  pointed  arch,  formed  by  the 
gradual  overlapping  of  successive  layers  of  stone.  This  mode  of 
forming  arches  and  domes  is  characteristic  of  the  age.  Connected 
with  the  southeast  gallery  is  a  series  of  chambers.  Undoubtedly  in 
these  well  protected  spaces  provisions  and  war  material  were  stored 
against  a  siege.  At  Mycenae  we  find  more  advanced  masonry.  In 
one  kind,  termed  ashlar,  the  stones  are  cut  in  oblong  shape  and  ar- 
ranged in  horizontal  layers.  Still  more  developed  is  the  polygonal 
style,  composed  of  large  many-faced  stones  so  carefully  fitted  as  to 
leave  no  space  for  rubble.  The  cruder  forms  continued  by  the  side 
of  the  more  highly  developed. ^^ 

Religion:  deities.  The  chief  deity  was  a  nature  power,  the 
mother  of  all  living  things,  Rhea  in  Crete,  Cybele  in  Asia  Minor.  As 
patroness  of  field  and  mountain  she  stands  conspicuous  on  a  lofty 
rock  between  her  two  attendant  lions.  In  her  relations  with  civilized 
life  she  arms  herself  with  the  double-axe  to  battle  for  her  city,  or  in 
times  of  quiet  presides  over  multifarious  social  and  political  func- 
tions. Her  son,  the  youthful  Zeus,  a  god  who  is  born  and  ultimately 
dies,  likewise  wields  the  battle  axe,  or  when  duly  invoked  by  the 
young  men  —  curetes  —  in  martial  dance,  vouchsafes  full  jars,  fleecy 
flocks,  prosperous  sea-borne  ships  and  goodly  law.-°  Another  great 
deity  was  possibly  Minos,  worshipped  in  the  form  of  a  bull.  Among 
the  deities  of  less  prominence  we  recognize  Aphrodite,  a  nude  or 
lightly  clad  idol,  her  hands  brought  together  on  her  breast,  sometimes 
accompanied  by  doves,  and  Artemis,  deity  of  wood  and  animals,  of 
hunting  and  fishing.  The  serpent  attributes  of  another  goddess  con- 
nect her  with  the  earth  or  underworld,  with  the  spirits  of  the  tomb  or 
of  the  house.  Throughout  the  age  were  fashioned  small  images  of 
these  gods  and  of  others  whose  character  eludes  our  study.  In  addi- 
tion to  divinities  in  human  form  they  adored  or  venerated  as  sacred 

19Tsountas  and  Manatt,  Myc.  Age,  ch.  ii;  Hall,  Acg.  Arch.  138  ff . ;  Dussaud,  120  ff.,  128 
ff.     For  an  example  of  ashlar  masonry,   see  "  A  Siege,"   p.   20. 
20  H.  Civ.  No.  8. 


22  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

symbols,  trees,  pillars,  the  cross,  the  double  axe,  and  various  other 
objects.  They  built  no  temples,  but  conducted  their  worship  in  the 
open  air,  in  caves,  or  in  chapels  within  their  dwellings.-^ 

Worship  of  the  dead.  Another  aspect  of  religion  was  the  worship 
of  the  dead,  which  included  the  customs  of  burial.  A  type  of  inhu- 
mation is  represented  in  the  circular  cemetery  on  the  Acropolis  of 
Mycenae.  The  six  graves  found  here  were  the  burial  place  of  a  long 
dynasty,  who  used  it  for  all  the  members  of  their  family,  men,  women, 
and  children.  Each  contained  several  bodies.  In  death  they  were 
elegantly  appareled  and  loaded  with  jewels  and  gold  ornaments. 
With  them  further  were  buried  articles  of  toilet,  cooking  utensils  and 
table  furniture,  tools,  military  equipment  —  in  brief  everything  civ- 
ilized men  and  women  needed  in  daily  life.  A  gold  mask  found  in 
one  tomb  undoubtedly  imitated  the  face  of  the  living.  They  covered 
the  grave  with  stone  slabs  and  mounded  it  over,  reopening  it  for  new 
burials.  To  the  dead  they  offered  sacrifices  of  wild  and  domestic 
animals,  probably  also  of  human  beings,  as  the  scattered  bones  of 
men  and  animals  suggest.  Evidently  the  Minoans  believed  that  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  lived  in  the  tombs  and  enjoyed  these  sacrifices  and 
this  rich  equipment.  In  submitting  to  such  expensive  services  the 
living  must  have  been  actuated  not  only  by  respect  for  the  dead,  but 
by  a  superstitious  dread  of  ghosts,  who  when  neglected  forsook  their 
abode  to  do  mischief  to  their  kinsfolk. 

Beehive  tombs.  Later  kings  of  vastly  greater  power  built  in  the 
lower  city  their  dome-shaped  "  beehive "  tombs.  The  masonry  is 
ashlar;  the  stones  are  smoothed  and  fitted  together  with  nice  precision. 
The  entire  structure  is  underground,  approached  from  the  side  of  the 
hill  by  a  long  horizontal  passage.  The  largest  building  of  this  class 
at  Mycenae  has  been  popularly  known  as  the  "  Treasury  of  Atreus," 
more  recently  as  the  "  Tomb  of  Atreus,"  father  of  Agamemnon.  Its 
corridor  of  approach  is  a  hundred  and  fifteen  feet  in  length,  the  dome 
forty-eight  feet  high  and  the  same  in  diameter.  The  kings  who 
erected  these  immense,  lasting  structures,  like  the  Egyptian  pyramid- 
builders,  must  have  wielded  enormous  power,  to  command  the  neces- 

21  Religion;  Hogarth,  "Aegean  Religion,"  in  Hasting's  Dirt,  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 
Dussaud,  ch.  vii;  Mosso,  Palaces,  chs.  x,  xiv;  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  147  f,  151  ff. ;  Harrison, 
BSA.  XV.  308-38;  Bosanquet  and  Murray,  op.  cit.  339-65  H.  Civ.  No.  8.  Minos  perhaps  a 
god;  Bethe,  Rhein.  Mus.  LXV.  214  ff.  The  worship  of  Aphrodite  was  not  derived  from  the 
Semites,  but  developed  from  the  neolithic  age,  as  is  proved  by  the  continuity  of  her  images 
from  that  period.  Artemis,  Minoan  Britomartis;  Roscher,  Lex.  I.  1.  821-8.  Snake  god- 
dess; Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  154  f. ;  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.  I.  1.  Ill;  Frothingham,  Am.  Journ. 
Arch.  XV.  349-77.  Idol.s,  double-axe,  etc.;  Dussaud,  327  ff . ;  Hall,  145  f.  Possibly  a  tem- 
ple in  sixth  city  of  Troy;   Hall,    146. 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  23 

sary  labor;  they  must  have  cherished,  too,  a  vast  conception  of  their 
own  importance  and  a  hope  of  immortality  dependent  on  the  preser- 
vation of  the  body  with  its  splendid  furnishings  of  useful  and  lux- 
urious objects.  Similar  tombs,  though  generally  smaller,  exist  in 
various  parts  of  Greece  and  in  Crete.  Those  at  Mycenae  were  plun- 
dered in  ancient  times,  but  elsewhere  have  been  found  in  them  remains 
of  the  dead  and  of  rich  offerings,  whose  character  places  this  class  of 
tombs  immediately  subsequent  to  those  of  the  Mycenaean  citadel.^" 

Character  of  the  religion.  Briefly  it  may  be  said  that  the  Minoan 
religion  was  an  exceedingly  complex  system,  which  involved  the  wor- 
ship of  gods  and  of  disembodied  spirits;  elaborate  rituals  performed 
by  a  specialized  priesthood;  the  wearing  of  amulets  suggestive  of 
charms  and  magic;  bloody  sacrifices  with  their  concomitant  ideas  of 
guilt  and  its  purification;  mysteries,  divination,  and  oracles.  It  was 
a  weird  religion,  well  calculated  as  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  a 
sacerdotal  aristocracy  for  holding  the  masses  in  check  through  super- 
natural terrors.-^ 

Boxing;  "Bull-leaping."  Among  the  ancients  recreations  con- 
nected closely  with  religion.  The  combative  instinct  of  the  Minoans 
is  seen  in  their  love  of  pugilism.  Boxers  wore  the  cestus,  and  assailed 
their  opponents  with  hands  and  feet.  Far  more  dangerous  and  excit- 
ing, however,  was  "  bull-leaping."  The  trick  of  the  toreador  seems 
to  have  been  to  meet  the  charging  beast  face  to  face,  seize  his  horns, 
and  turning  a  somersault  over  his  back,  leap  to  the  ground  in  the 
rear.  Girls  and  youths,  appropriately  costumed,  took  part  in  the 
perilous  sport,  vividly  pictured  on  the  Cnossian  palace  walls.  The 
gay  lords  and  ladies  must  have  witnessed  many  a  bloody  scene,  in 
brutality  comparable  with  the  gladiatorial  shows  at  Rome  or  with  the 
bull-baiting  of  modern  Spain.  Doubtless  these  toreadors  were 
forced  to  their  dangerous  vocation.  Many  may  have  been  exacted  as 
tribute  from  subject  states.  The  myth  that  Athens  had  every  nine 
years  to  send  seven  youths  and  seven  girls  to  be  devoured  by  the 
Minotaur  may  accordingly  contain  this  kernel  of  truth;  and  Theseus, 

22  Evans,  "Prehistoric  Tombs  of  Knossos,"  in  Archacologia,  LIX.  391-562;  "The  Tomb 
of  the  Double  Axes,"  etc.,  op.  cit.  LXV.  (1914).  1-94;  Tsountas  and  Manatt,  Mvc.  Age, 
chs.  v-vi;  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  158  ff. ;  Dussaud,  28  ff.,  398  ff.  Chamber  tombs,  usually  rec- 
tangular, and  sometimes  furnished  like  a   dwelling;   Hall,   161,   170;   Evans,   loc.   cit. 

23  Amulets;  Dussaud,  397  f.  fig.  294.  Delphic  oracle  probably  derived  from  Crete;  Hom- 
eric Hymn  to  Pythian  Apollo,  2i7  ff . ;  Swindler,  Cretan  Elements  in  the  Cults  and  Ritual 
of  Apollo,  15  ff.  Evidence  of  a  Minoan  settlement  at  Delphi;  Evans,  7HS.  XXXII.  285. 
Gloomy  aspects  of  Minoan  religion;   Lang,    World  of  Homer,  chs.   xi-xiii  passim. 


24  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

who  killed  the  monster,  may  have  been  in  fact  the  liberator  of  his 
countr}'.^* 

Chess,  music,  and  dancing.  From  the  excitement  of  this  sport 
we  may  turn  to  watch  the  king  playing  with  his  court  favorite  a 
game  resembling  chess  or  checkers  on  an  elaborate  board  still  pre- 
served; or  we  may  imagine  an  audience  of  courtiers  listening  to  the 
musicians.  We  see  a  man  playing  a  double  pipe,  another  with  a 
seven-stringed  lyre  in  hand.  The  tradition  therefore  which  repre- 
sents Crete  as  the  teacher  of  music  to  Hellas  is  true.  To  the  accom- 
paniment of  such  music  twinkle  the  dancers'  feet.  The  long  crimped 
tresses  of  the  dancing  girl  float  out  in  air  as  she  whirls  around  in 
the  orchestra  of  the  palace  theatre,  where  "  Daedalus  once  wrought  a 
dancing-place  for  Ariadne  of  the  lovely  tresses."  ^^ 

In  our  review  of  Minoan  life  we  have  caught  glimpses  of  a  society 
clearly  differentiated  into  poor  and  rich,  commons  and  nobles,  subjects 
and  rulers;  labor  specialized  into  diverse  crafts;  among  the  wealthy  a 
love  of  peaceful  ease,  luxury  and  beauty,  coupled  with  a  passion  for 
brutal  shows;  and  a  religion  uniting  cheerful  with  gloomy  features. 
The  social  organization  evidently  reveals  the  antecedents  of  the 
Dorian  system.  The  field  laborers  were  serfs  or  serflike  dependents, 
as  were  the  helots  of  later  time.  Many  towns  were  politically  subject 
to  Cnossus,  like  the  later  perioeci  of  Lacedaemon.  There  remained 
a  class  of  nobles  who  possessed  wealth  and  lived  independently  in 
private  dwellings.  The  priest-king,  however,  or  perhaps  we  should 
say  god-king,  aimed  to  concentrate  life  within  his  stupendous  palace, 
to  engage  as  many  as  possible  of  the  inhabitants  in  the  service  of  the 
state,  and  to  measure  out  food  to  them  at  public  tables.  Thus  the 
artist  and  artisan  class  were  brought  into  the  palace.  An  effort  was 
made  also  to  create  a  military  caste  dependent  on  the  state  and 
equipped  from  the  palace  arsenal.  It  was  a  unique  experiment  in 
despotic  socialism.^"     But  the  system,  devised  by  the  king  and  his 

24  Boxers;  Burrows,  Discoveries,  34  f. ;  Mosso,  Palaces,  211  f.,  339  f.  Bull  grappling  or 
leaping;  Evans,  BSA.  VII.  94  f. ;  VIII.  74;  Mosso,  211-25.  Presence  of  ladies;  Hall,  Aeg. 
Arch.  48.     Theseus  and  the  Minotaur;   H.   Civ.   No.  4. 

25  Iliad  xviii,  590.  Royal  gaming  board;  Dussaud,  63  (ill.).  Double  pipe  and  lyre, 
ibid;   see  Index. 

2ii  The  notion  that  social  classes  are  communities  or  "  races  "  superimposed  upon  one 
another  is  from  every  point  of  view  absurd,  though  it  is  still  naively  entertained  by  a  few 
scholars.  On  this  subject,  see  Botsford,  Roman  Assemblies,  with  authorities  cited.  When 
the  Dorians  entered  the  Minoan  area,  they  found  in  existence  a  highly  complicated  social 
structure,  to  which  they  adapted  themselves;  see  ch.  vi.  On  the  sur\'ival  of  Minoan  condi- 
tions and  regulations,  Ephorus,  in  Strabo  x.  4.  17;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  10.  2;  vii.  10.  1-2,  1271 
b,  1329  b;  c/.  H.  Civ.  Nos.  5-6. 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  25 

favorites,  robbed  the  citizens  of  individuality  and  personal  freedom; 
it  compelled  the  masses  to  toil  for  the  few,  who  exhausted  the  re- 
sources of  the  nation  in  art  and  extravagant  luxury.  The  militarism 
of  the  Late  Minoan  kings  added  to  the  waste.  The  archive  records, 
though  we  cannot  read  them,  point  to  a  complex  bureaucracy,  like  that 
of  Egypt,  which  crushed  the  people  by  its  weight,  robbed  them  of  the 
fruits  of  their  toil,  hence  finally  of  their  interest  in  life.  Thus  in 
various  ways  government  and  civilization,  by  sapping  the  energy  of 
the  governed,  in  Crete  and  later  on  the  Greek  mainland,  engendered 
internal  decay.  The  artist  lost  his  inventive  power;  stagnation  was 
inevitably  followed  by  slow  deterioration  in  every  activity  of  life. 

Ethnology.  It  need  not  be  supposed  that  in  the  long  period  ex- 
tending from  the  early  neolithic  age  to  the  end  of  the  Middle  Minoan 
era  the  population  of  the  Aegean  world  remained  the  same.  Unin- 
terrupted development  is  not  in  itself  evidence  of  continuity  of  race; 
and  on  the  other  hand  there  may  be  changes  of  civilization  which  do 
not  involve  the  substitution  of  one  people  for  another.  As  to  the 
language  of  this  early  time  there  are  only  the  slightest  indications. 
Pre-Hellenic  place  names  in  Greece  have  their  kin  on  the  islands  and 
in  Asia  Minor.  This  circumstance  points  to  the  diffusion  of  a  single 
language  by  migration  from  East  to  West  or  the  reverse.  This  tongue 
is  certainly  not  Indo-European,  but  seems  to  be  related  to  the  Carian 
and  Lycian.  In  the  extensive  Aegean  area  there  was  room  for  more 
than  one  form  of  speech;  and  from  time  to  time  new  peoples  and 
tongues  were  introduced  by  immigration.-" 

The  original  home  and  early  wanderings  of  the  Indo-Europeans 
need  not  be  considered  in  this  volume;  and  in  treating  of  their  arrival 
in  Greece  we  can  only  deal  in  probabilities.  The  opening  of  the  Late 
Minoan  era,  1600,  as  we  may  reasonably  believe,  saw  them  in  posses- 
sion of  all  or  nearly  all  Greece.  The  process  of  migration  and  set- 
tlement, however,  continually  modified  their  racial  character.  In  fact 
history  knows  no  people  of  unmixed  blood.  Doubtless  the  Indo- 
Europeans  in  their  common  home  were  of  various  stocks.  Their 
several  tribes,  as  they  journeyed  gradually  to  their  respective  histori- 
cal countries,  absorbed  all  manner  of  alien  peoples  on  the  way,  as 

27  Place  names  in  -nthos  and  -essos;  Kretchschmer,  P.,  Einleitung  in  die  Geschichte  der 
griech.  Sprache,  293  ff.  In  historical  times  the  inhabitants  of  Praesos,  Crete,  still  spoke  a 
non-Indo-European  language,  probably  a  survival  of  a  pre-Hellenic  tongue.  Minoan 
proper  names  in  general  have  a  non-Greek  appearance;  Hall,  Aeg.  Arch.  229  f . ;  Sundwall, 
Jahrb.  arch.  Inst.  XXX.  59  ff. ;  The  Carians  and  Lycians  were  not  Indo-Europeans;  Sund- 
wall, KHo,  XI.   464  ff.   and  Beiheft  XI. 


26  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

usually  happens  with  wandering  hordes.  Few  if  any  who  came  into 
Greece  were  unmixed  descendants  of  those  who  had  left  the  Indo- 
European  homeland.  Then  the  newcomers  in  Greece  began  to  blend 
with  the  natives,  and  were  continually  joined  by  many  strangers  from 
the  islands,  from  Asia  Minor,  from  Crete  and  elsewhere.  The  min- 
gling of  these  diverse  stocks  through  centuries  ultimately  produced  the 
Greek  race.  Although  many  place  names  remained  undisturbed,  the 
language  of  the  Northerners,  rich  in  myths,  strong,  flexible,  and  highly 
capable  of  artistic  treatment,  prevailed.-^ 

At  the  opening  of  the  Late  Minoan  era,  1600,  Thessaly  and 
Boeotia,  still  neolithic,  were  held  by  the  Aeolians;  Attica,  Euboea,  and 
the  east  coast  of  Peloponnese  by  tlie  Old  lonians;  central  and  south- 
ern Peloponnese  by  the  Arcadians,  an  offshoot  of  the  Aeolian  group. 
West  of  the  Aeolians  Tvas  an  area  occupied  either  at  that  time  or 
somewhat  later  by  a  people  described  simply  as  the  Northwestern 
Greeks.  All  these  racial  names,  however,  properly  apply,  neither  to 
the  northern  immigrants  nor  to  the  natives,  but  to  the  ultimate  blend 
of  the  two  races,  and  are  here  used  anticipatively  for  convenience. 
The  immigrants  from  the  North  were  evidently  a  minority  of  the  pop- 
ulation; but  superior  virility  gave  their  leaders  a  dominant  place  in 
their  respective  districts.  It  was  not  simply  the  mainland  that  began 
in  this  way  to  fall  under  Indo-European  control.  Evidently  indi- 
vidual adventurers,  with  their  attendants,  crossed  to  the  islands,  where 
by  cleverness  and  personal  superiority  they  attained  to  a  place  in  the 
ruling  classes  and  mingled  their  speech  with  that  of  the  natives.  Ow- 
ing to  such  long-continued  migratory  disturbances  the  peninsula  had 
made  but  little  progress  in  civilization,  though  appreciably  more  in 
the  South  than  in  the  North.  Before  the  close  of  the  Middle  Minoan 
age,  however,  as  the  movements  in  Greece  temporarily  subsided,  civ- 
ilization began  to  develop  there  with  surprising  rapidity.-'' 

28  Schrader,  Indogermanen  (1911),  159  f.,  places  the  homeland  north  and  northwest  of 
the  Black  sea;  and  this  view  is  at  least  as  probable  as  any  other.  Meyer's  effort  {Gesch.  d. 
Alt.  I.   799  ff.)  to  replace  it  in  central  Asia  has  met  with  little  success. 

Some  have  assumed  that  the  Minoan  cities  in  Greece  were  founded  by  Cretan  colonies. 
Objections  are  (1)  the  hall  type  of  palace.  The  chieftain  from  the  North  kept  his  tradi- 
tional plan  of  house  though  willing  to  adopt  all  manner  of  imported  refinements  from 
Crete.  (2)  Time  must  be  allowed  for  the  successive  waves  of  migration,  for  the  gradual 
blending  of  races,  and  for  the  colonization  of  the  Aegean  islands,  a  movement  which  must 
have  begun  near  the  opening  of  the  Late  Minoan  age.  Important  changes  in  dress,  mili- 
tary equipment,  etc.  at  the  beginning  of  the  Late  Minoan  period;  Oelmann,  Jahrb.  arch. 
Inst.  XXVII  (1912).  38-51.  „     ,  .        .     ^,         ,        , 

29  Thessaly  and  Boeotia;  Wace,  A.  J.  B.  and  Thompson,  M.  S.,  Prehistonc  Thessaly ;a.\so 
BSA  XIV.  197-223.  lonians  in  eastern  Peloponnese;  Hdt.  viii.  73;  Paus.  ii.  26.  2;  32.  1;  cf.  Hoff- 
mann, Gesch.  d.  griech.  Sprache,  I.  19  f.  Arcadians  or  a  related  people  in  pre-Dorian  Laconia: 
Solmsen,  Rhein.  Mus.  LXII.  329-38.  The  historical  Arcadians  and  Aeolians  were  descend- 
ants of  the  so-called  Achaeans.     The  Achaeans  of  historical  times,  a  wholly  different  people. 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  27 

On  favorable  sites  along  the  coast  at  a  varying  distance  from  the 
shore,  as  at  Tiryns  and  Mycenae,  at  Athens  and  Orchomenus,  at 
Vaphio  (Laconia)  and  Old  Pylos  (Messenia)  Hellenic  chieftains 
built  their  fortress  cities.  In  these  mainland  settlements  the  most 
powerful  civilizing  influence  was  commerce  with  Crete;  and  yet  we 
may  well  believe  that  throngs  of  Minoan  architects  and  artisans  came 
to  seek  emplo3'ment  in  the  new  and  stirring  centres  of  political  power. 
The  king's  abode,  however,  was  not  a  copy  of  the  Cnossian  palace,  but 
a  development  from  a  simpler  European  type  like  that  found  in  the 
second  settlement  at  Troy.  Its  essential  characteristic  was  a  great 
hall  with  a  central  hearth,  features  unknown  to  contemporary  Crete. 
To  win  his  many  Minoan  subiects  and  to  centralize  his  power,  the 
Hellenic  king  adopted  the  native  religion,  including  the  deification 
of  the  deceased  sovereign  and  the  building  of  a  gigantic  tomb  for 
himself.  The  mighty  walls  around  his  city  were  a  protection  from 
the  barbarous  tribes  that  assailed  him,  and  still  more  from  the  Cretan 
king. 

Hardly  had  the  sovereign  of  Cnossus  united  all  Crete  under  his 
sway  than  he  began  to  extend  his  dominion  to  the  more  distant 
Aegean  islands.  Though  he  gained  no  foothold  in  Asia  Minor,  he 
threatened  the  coasts  of  Peloponnese  and  probably  made  temporary 
conquests  in  Attica.^"  With  the  political  advance  of  Greece,  how- 
ever, his  power  receded.  The  kings  of  the  Hellenic  peninsula  were 
gradually  colonizing  the  islands.  First  sailed  forth  great  piratical 
armadas,  doubtless  made  up  from  several  maritime  kingdoms.  In 
the  fifteenth  century  Melos  was  taken  by  one  of  these  armaments,  and 
its  palace  sacked  and  burned.  In  the  new  settlement  which  followed, 
the  palace  was  of  the  hall  type  and  the  culture  in  general  was  conti- 
nental rather  than  Cretan. ^^  Evidently  a  colony  from  Greece  estab- 
lished itself  in  the  midst  of  the  native  population.  About  1400 
Cnossus  experienced  the  same  fate.  The  palace  had  attained  to  its 
utmost  size  and  magnificence;  but  the  mind  of  the  race  was  stagnant. 
Court  society,  never  more  brilliant  in  appearance  or  more  luxurious, 
was  held  in  the  thraldom  of  fashion;  in  brief,  the  whole  life  of  Crete 

were  related  to  the  Dorians. —  The  earhest  Cretan  influence  on  the  Greek  mainland  appears 
in  the  pottery  of  Middle  Minoan  III  (1800-1600)  found  at  Tiryns;  Hall,  Ancient  History,  58. 

30  The  establishment  of  colonies  named  Minoa  in  the  Cyclades  (Bethe,  Rhein.  Mus. 
LXV.  212)  seems  to  point  to  Cretan  domination.  A  city  of  the  same  name  in  southern 
Cynuria  and  another  on  an  island  off  Nisaea  (op.  cit.  211  f.)  may  well  have  been  points  of 
observation  or  bases  of  attack.  The  conquest  of  Attica  is  indicated  by  the  myth  of  the 
tribute  to  the  Minotaur. 

31  Atkinson  and  others,  Philakopi,  263,  269  f.  The  settlement  at  Philakopi  here  referred 
to  is  the  one  numbered  III. 


28  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

was  fossilizing,  like  that  of  contemporary  Egypt.  These  conditions 
were  suddenly  brought  to  an  end  by  the  destruction  of  the  palace. 
The  blackened  walls,  the  charred  ends  of  beams,  the  almost  complete 
absence  of  gold  and  bronze  seem  to  proclaim  the  sack  and  burning 
of  the  city.  As  the  same  thing  happened  at  Phaestus,  at  Hagia 
Triada,  and  elsewhere  in  Crete,  we  may  infer  that  the  catastrophe  was 
due  to  no  accident  or  dynastic  revolution  or  uprising  of  the  masses. 
We  can  explain  the  event  best  by  supposing  it  to  have  been  the  work 
of  raiders,  who  swept  over  the  wealthy  cities  of  the  island  in  their 
career  of  plunder.  It  may  well  be  that  the  fleets  of  coast  cities 
were  joined  in  this  enterprise  by  squadrons  of  barbarians  from  the 
interior  of  Europe,  for  desolating  the  fairest  habitations  thus  fa^ 
created  by  man.  Succeeding  to  this  devastation,  a  colony  like  that  on 
Melos  introduced  mainland  culture  amid  the  devitalized  native  pop- 
ulation. The  extreme  poverty  of  the  settlement  is  evidence  that  others 
must  have  enjoyed  the  movable  wealth  of  the  former  city. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  late  Minoan  age  disturbances  in  the 
Aegean  sea  had  turned  the  commercial  enterprise  of  Crete  in  other  di- 
rections. Minoans  of  this  age,  accordingly,  planted  colonies  in  the 
islands  off  the  west  coast  of  Greece,  in  southern  Italy,  and  in  Sicily. 
Through  these  settlements  and  through  commerce  the  Minoan  system 
of  life  gained  a  foothold  in  all  these  regions.  After  the  destruction 
of  Cnossus  a  remnant  of  the  population  colonized  Spain,  while  others 
found  homes  at  Miletus  and  in  Cyprus.  A  century  afterward  Greek 
and  Minoan  tribes,  migrating  by  sea  and  land,  extended  their  piracies 
to  the  East-Mediterranean  waters  and  coasts.  Early  in  the  thir- 
teenth century  they  joined  the  Libyans  in  ravaging  the  Egyptian 
Delta. ^^  A  few  generations  later  the  Peleset  moved  from  the  Minoan 
area  through  Asia  Minor  into  Syria  "  with  their  families  in  curious, 
heavy  two-wheeled  ox-carts,  and  by  sea  in  a  fleet  that  skirted  the 
Syrian  coast."  ^^  Occupying  a  strip  of  shore  country  south  of 
Phoenicia,  they  became  known  to  history  under  the  name  of  Philis- 
tines. Although  far  superior  to  the  Asiatics  in  civilization,  they 
adopted  the  Semitic  language;  and  it  was  from  them  most  probably 
that  the  Phoenicians  derived  the  elements  of  their  alphabet.^* 

These  extensive  migrations  may  be  traced  in  part  to  a  movement 

32  Breasted,  Ancient  Records,  III.   579  f. 

33  Breasted,   Ancient  Records,   IV.   44. 

34  Macalister,   R.   A.   S.,    The  Philistines   (1914);   cf.   History  of  Civilizatton  in  Palestine 
(1912). 


THE  MINOAN  AGE  29 

of  European  tribes  southward  into  Thrace  and  the  Balkan  peninsula. 
One  of  these  tribes,  the  Phrygians,  crossed  the  Hellespont,  and  occu- 
pying the  central  part  of  western  Asia  Minor,  dislodged  some  of  the 
natives  of  that  region,  who  necessarily  had  recourse  to  migrations. 
Under  the  same  southward  pressure  Northwestern  Hellenes  filtered 
into  other  parts  of  Greece.  Some  crossed  into  Thessaly  and  Boeotia, 
yet  not  in  sufficient  numbers  to  overwhelm  the  Aeolian  dialect  of  these 
two  countries.  It  remained  purer  in  the  former  than  in  the  latter. 
Meanwhile  other  emigrants  from  the  Northwest  were  crossing  into 
Peloponnese,  where,  too,  they  mingled  with  the  earlier  inhabitants. 
Thus  arose  Achaea,^^  whose  language  was  akin  to  that  north  of  the 
Corinthian  Gulf,  and  of  more  distantly  related  speech,  the  Dorians 
of  Argolis  and  Laconia.  From  Argolis  the  Dorian  dialect  passed  to 
Corinth  and  Megara,  and  from  Laconia  to  Messenia.  The  dialect  of 
Elis  likewise  points  to  a  migration  from  across  the  Gulf.  This 
movement  of  population  from  the  Northwest,  represented  in  story  as 
the  "  Dorian  migration,"  affected  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Greek 
peninsula.  The  people  of  Attica,  however,  had  no  tradition  of  a 
tribal  migration  into  their  country;  they  knew  only  of  a  peaceful 
infiltration  of  families,  many  of  whom  became  noble.  Arcadia,  too, 
remained  untouched.  Its  people  had  once  extended  over  the  coast 
region  to  the  south;  and  in  the  Late  Minoan  age  many  went  off  as 
colonists  to  Cyprus.  Those  who  remained  in  Laconia  were  merged  in 
the  Dorian  race,  whereas  the  people  of  the  interior  highlands,  under 
the  name  of  Arcadians,  maintained  their  original  language  and  their 
racial  character.  Having  adopted  but  little  of  the  higher  Minoan 
culture,  they  had  little  to  lose  by  its  downfall.^" 

35  The  Achaeans  of  this  country  had  no  connections  with  the  "  Achaeans  "  mentioned 
above,  p.  26,  n.  29. 

36  When  the  word  race  applies  to  divisions  of  the  Hellenes,  it  signifies  dialectic  groups 
purely  and  simply;  and  throughout  the  present  volume  the  term  connotes  kinship  in  feel- 
ing rather  than  in  fact.  No  large  group  of  human  beings  descended  from  common  par- 
ents is  known  to  history;  and  the  word  race,  if  it  is  to  remain  serviceable,  must  be  dis- 
associated from  this  false  conception.—  The  wanderings  and  settlements  of  the  Hellenes  are 
determined  by  a  study  of  dialects;  see  Buck,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Greek  Dia- 
lects; Hoffmann,   Gesch.   der  griech.   Sprache,   I. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

For  the  Minoan  age  the  following  books  will  be  found  especially  useful: 
Hawes,  C.  H.  and  H.,  Crete  the  Forerunner  of  Greece  (Harper,  1909),  a  clear 
summary;  Baikie,  J.,  The  Sea-Kings  of  Crete  (London:  Adam  and  Black, 
1910),  popular;  Mosso,  A.,  Dawn  of  Mediterranean  Civilization  (London: 
Fisher  Unwin,  1910),  to  about  2000  B.C.;  Palaces  of  Crete  (Putnam,  1907), 
useful  for  special  topics;  Tsountas,  C.  and  Manatt,  I.,  The  Mycenaean  Age 
(Houghton  Mifflin,   1897),   brilliant  though   in  need  of  revision;   Hall,   H.  R.. 


30  HELLENIC  HISTORY 


Aegean  Archaeology  (London:  Warner,  1915);  Ancient  History  of  the  Near 
East  (London:  Methuen,  1913),  31-72;  Hall,  E.  H.,  Decorative  Art  of  Greece 
in  the  Bronze  Age  (Philadelphia:  Winston,  1907).  Pottery,  the  alphabet  of 
archaeology,  is  well  treated  in  this  work.  Burrows,  R.  M.,  Discoveries  in  Crete 
(London:  Murray,  1907),  deals  with  the  problems;  Botsford,  G.  W.  and  Sihler, 
E.  G.,  Hellenic  Civilization  (Columbia  University  Press,  1915),  for  the  literary 
sources  and  their  interpretation;  Dussaud,  R.,  Les  civilisations  prehcllcniques 
dans  le  bassin  de  la  nier  egee  (2d  ed.,  Paris:  Geuthner,  1914),  the  most  com- 
plete treatment,  and  invaluable  for  the  illustrations;  Meyer,  E.,  Geschichte  des 
Altertums,  I  (2d  ed.),  677-803.  The  following  have  been  promised:  Evans,  A., 
The  Nine  Minoan  Periods,  summary;  An  Atlas  of  Cnossian  Antiquities,  with 
explanatory  text.  See  also  the  works  mentioned  in  the  notes  and  the  bibli- 
ography in  H.  Civ.  114-7. 


MYCENAEAN  POTTERY 
(British  Museum) 


16"  Longitude  £aat '^ 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  MIDDLE  AGE:  TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN   TO 

HELLENIC   LIFE 

About  1200-750 

At  the  time  when  migratory  warriors  were  raiding  the  Egyptian 
Delta  and  colonizing  Philistia/  the  Minoan  civilization  was  fast 
yielding  to  a  more  barbaric  form  of  life.  So  notable  was  the  decline 
that  from  about  1200  we  may  date  the  beginning  of  a  new  era,  which 
was  essentially  a  transition  from  Minoan  to  Hellenic  life.  The 
period  thus  defined  bears  close  analogies  with  the  later  European 
"  Middle  Ages,"  in  that  both  were  characterized,  not  only  by  invasions 
of  less  civilized  peoples,  but  also  by  a  vast  decline  and  an  incipient 
recovery  of  culture. 

I.     Dorian  and  Ionian  Colonization  and  Culture 

For  a  long  period  after  the  beginning  of  this  era  colonial  expansion 
from  the  west  to  east  across  the  Aegean  sea  made  progress.-  From 
Argolis  and  Laconia  emigrants,  first  "  Achaean "  and  afterward 
Dorian,  made  their  homes  in  Melos  and  Thera,  southmost  islands  of 
the  Cyclades.  In  the  same  order  they  occupied  the  choicest  parts 
of  Crete,  which  came  thus  to  the  ethnic  complexion  described  by 
Homer:  "  There  is  a  land  called  Crete  in  the  midst  of  the  wine-dark 
sea,  a  fair  land  and  rich,  begirt  with  water;  and  therein  are  men  in- 
numerable, and  ninety  cities.     And  all  have  not  the  same  speech,  but 

1  p.  52.  The  sources  for  this  period  are  mainly  Homer,  p.  43  ff.  and  the  excavations. 
Reports  of  excavations  in  Laconia  and  elsewhere  in  Sparta  begin  in  BSA.  XI  (1904-05),  by 
Dawkins,  Wace,  and  others.  See  also  JHS.  beginning  with  XXVII  (1907).  The  cemetery 
at  Athens  of  this  period  is  well  represented  by  Poulsen,  F.,  Die  Dipylongrdber  und  die 
Dipylonvasen  (Leipzig,,  1905).  For  Ephesus,  see  Hogarth,  D.  G.,  Excavations  at  Ephesus, 
2  vols.  (British  Museum,  1908).  For  Miletus,  Milet;  die  Ergebnisse  der  Ausgrabuiigen,  und 
der  Utitersuchuiigeii  seit  dein  Jahre  1899,  edited  by  Th.  Wiegand  (Berlin:  Reimer)  is  in 
course  of  publication.  Reports  of  excavations  in  Samos,  Abhdl.  Berlin.  Akad.  beginning 
1911. 

2  Ch.  IV.  The  appearance  of  the  mainland  palace  in  the  Cyclades  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury places  the  beginning  of  the  colonization  as  early  as  that  period.  In  this  volume  the 
three  racial  movements  of  expansion,  Dorian,  Ionian,  and  Aeolian,  are  presented  with  less 
regard  for  chronology  than  for  cultural  relations.  The  Greeks  of  later  time  gave  the  move 
ments  in  the  reverse  order  (cf.  Busolt,  Criech.  Gescli.  I.  p.  272  ff.  and  notes).  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  they  had  no  exact  knowledge  of  the  subject. 

31 


32  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

there  is  a  confusion  of  tongues:  there  dwell  Achaeans  and  there  too 
Eteo-Cretans  (True  Cretans)  high  of  heart,  and  Cydonians  there  and 
Dorians  of  waving  plumes  and  goodly  Pelasgians.  And  among 
them  is  the  mighty  city  Cnossus,  wherein  Minos  rules  in  nine-year 
periods,  he  who  had  converse  with  great  Zeus."  ^  Beyond  Crete  the 
Dorians  pushed  on  to  Carpathos,  to  Rhodes,  and  ultimately  to  the 
coast  of  the  mainland.  Among  their  cities  on  the  Anatolian  shore 
were  Cnidus  and  Halicarnassus,  both  thriving  centres  of  industry  and 
commerce. 

The  Greeks  who  came  to  Crete  were  attracted  to  the  area  which  had 
experienced  the  highest  cultural  development,  to  Cnossus,  Gortyn, 
Phaestus  and  their  neighborhood.  In  the  East  the  Eteo-Cretans,  at 
Praesos,  maintained  their  nationality  and  their  language  far  down  in 
historical  times.  In  the  West  were  Cydonians,  regarded  by  Homer 
as  non-Greek  but  certainly  Dorian  in  the  historical  age.  Because  of 
the  small  number  of  Hellenic  immigrants  into  this  island  the  process 
of  assimilation  was  remarkably  slow. 

Earlier  perhaps  than  the  Dorian  colonization  was  the  beginning  of 
the  movement  from  central  Greece  to  the  Cyclades  mentioned  in  the 
preceding  chapter.  Gradually  this  migration  continued  eastward  till 
it  reached  and  included  the  narrow  strip  of  territory  on  the  Anatolian 
coast  afterward  known  as  Ionia.  On  the  sites  of  neolithic  villages 
these  immigrants  in  the  period  of  Minoan  decadence  founded  small 
cities.  To  colonists  from  Crete  were  added  adventurers  from  the 
Cyclades  and  from  various  parts  of  the  Hellenic  peninsula.*  In  fact 
it  was  a  motley  population  that  came,  and  they  made  themselves  more 
heterogeneous  by  mingling  with  the  natives.  "  They  have  no  right  to 
pride  themselves  on  purity  of  descent,"  says  Herodotus,  "  considering 
that  a  large  part  of  them  are  Abantes  from  Euboea,  who  have  no 
share  even  in  the  name  of  Ionia,  and  Minyans  of  Orchomenus  have 
been  mingled  with  them,  and  Cadmeians  and  Dryopians  and  Phocians, 
who  seceded  from  their  native  state,  and  Molossians,  and  Pelasgians 
of  Arcadia  and  Dorians  of  Epidaurus,  and  many  other  races  have 
been  mingled  with  them;  and  those  of  them  who  set  forth  from  the 
prytaneion    (town  hall)   of  Athens  and  who  esteem  themselves  the 

3  Odyssey  xix.  170  ff.  The  Pelasgians,  probably  a  pre-Hellenic  tribe,  may  have  immi- 
grated from  Thessaly.  Eteo-Cretans  and  Cydonians  are  explained  in  the  text  below. 
Rhodes  was  Dorian  in  Horner's  time;  Iliad  ii.  668. 

4  Neolithic  village  at  Miletus,  followed  by  a  late  Minoan  settlement;  Dussaud,  200  f . ; 
Wiegand,  Abhdl,  Berl.  Akad.  1908,  p.  7  f. ;  1911,  p.  4-6.  Early  colony  at  Miletus  from 
Crete;  Strabo  xiv.  1.  6. 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE        33 

most  noble  by  descent  of  the  lonians,  these,  I  say,  brought  no  women 
with  them  to  the  settlement,  but  took  Carian  captive  women,  whose 
parents  they  slew."  '''  So  far  were  the  newcomers  from  aiming  at 
racial  purity  that  they  not  only  married  native  wives  but  received 
Carian  chieftains  into  their  own  nobility  and  even  acccepted  them 
as  kings."  In  a  varying  degree  this  principle  of  race-mixing  holds 
for  all  Greek  colonies.  Doubtless  it  was  partly  the  composite  nature 
of  the  population,  as  well  as  the  lovely  climate,  the  most  favorable 
in  the  world  known  to  Herodotus,  the  rich  soil,  the  highly  articulated 
coast  adapted  to  commerce,  and  the  situation  on  the  borderland 
between  Hellenic  and  Oriental  civilizations  which  made  the  lonians 
for  centuries  the  most  brilliant  and  most  versatile  of  Greeks,  in  the  age 
of  their  glory  the  standard-bearers  of  the  world's  civilization.  Among 
their  most  noted  cities  were  Phocaea,  famed  for  her  early  naval  power 
and  her  distant  western  colonies,  Ephesus,  where  was  built  a  great 
temple  to  Artemis,  and  Miletus,  an  illustrious  centre  of  industry, 
commerce,   and  intellectual  life. 

In  this  new  home  the  lonians  were  more  aggressive  and  more  pow- 
erful than  their  Hellenic  neighbors.  On  the  South,  Dorian  Halicar- 
nassus,  and  in  the  opposite  direction  Aeolic  Chios  and  Smyrna,  in 
time  became  Ionized,  while  commercial  relations  with  Phoenicia  gave 
the  Semites  the  Ionian  name  in  the  form  Javan,  with  which  to  desig- 
nate the  entire  Hellenic  race.^ 

On  the  Greek  mainland  the  process  of  Hellenic  assimilation  was 
more  rapid  than  elsewhere.  There,  apart  from  place  names,  no  clear 
trace  of  a  native  tongue  has  been  discovered.  In  considerable 
stretches  of  the  eastern  coast  of  Peloponnesus,  as  in  Troezen  and 
Cynuria,  the  Ionian  dialect  long  maintained  itself;  *  elsewhere  in 
Argolis  the  Dorian  speech  prevailed  both  in  the  country  and  in 
Tiryns,  Mycenae,  and  Argos.  Within  the  Middle  Age  Argos  gained 
the  mastery  over  her  rivals  and  ultimately  imposed  her  hegemony 
upon  the  peninsula  that  bears  her  name.  In  Laconia  our  earliest  his- 
•  torical  light  reveals  a  population  essentially  homogeneous  in  culture 

5  Hdt.  i.  146.  The  Abantes,  Minyans,  and  Cadmeians  were  pre-Hellenes.  The  name 
Dryopians  (people  of  central  Greece;  Hdt.  viii.  31)  at  least  is  Greek,  meaning  wood-folk. 
The  Molossians  were  from  Epeirus.  The  natives  of  western  Asia  Minor,  including  Lyd- 
ians,  Lycians,  and  Carians,  were  not  Indo-European;  Sundwall,  Klio,  Beih.  XL  255  f.,  281. 

6  Hdt.  i.   147. 

7  Halicarnassus  was  partly  Ionian  from  the  beginning;  Hdt.  vii.  99;  Strabo  xiv.  2.  16. 
Its  official  language  in  the  fifth  century  was  Ionian;  Hicks  and  Hill,  No.  27.— Javan  = 
Ia(F)onia.  F  dropped  early  from  the  Ionic  alphabet.  Javan  the  Semitic  name  of  the 
Hellenes;    Genesis  x.   2;    Ezekiel   xxvii.    13. 

8  Troezen;  Paus.  ii.  32  1  (Ionic  institutions).    Cynuria;  Hdt.  viii.  73. 


34  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  in  language.  Some  Mycenaean  sites,  as  Amyclae  and  Therapne, 
were  occupied  by  Hellenic  cities,  whereas  Sparta,  destined  to  a  leading 
place  in  Greek  history,  was  a  wholly  new  foundation. 

Similarly  Attica,  which  had  contained  a  number  of  Mycenaean 
sites,  experienced  as  thorough  an  amalgamation  of  Hellenic  and  native 
races,  and  at  the  same  time  became  politically  centralized  in  its 
chief  city,  Athens.  As  the  southmost  section  of  Aegean  coasts  and 
islands  was  occupied  by  the  Dorian  race,  which  was  essentially  one 
though  with  slight  local  differences  of  blood  and  dialect,  so  the  Ionian 
name  generally  applied  to  the  section  extending  from  Attica  to  the 
Anatolian  coast.  Only  as  the  Athenians  awakened  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  their  own  superiority,  did  they  discard  the  Ionian  name.^  In 
this  section,  too,  of  Aegean  shores  and  islands,  in  spite  of  local  differ- 
ences in  dialect  and  ethnic  composition,  the  population  was  essen- 
tially one  in  language  and  in  race,  in  political  and  religious  institu- 
tions, and  in  social  customs.  For  a  long  time  the  mother  peoples 
were  more  conserv^ative,  the  colonies  more  progressive. 

The  most  fundamental  transformations  of  this  period  were  the 
blending  of  the  immigrant  culture  with  that  of  the  natives,  and  the 
gradual  emergence  of  the  Hellenic  world  from  the  turmoil  and  the 
relative  barbarism  following  upon  the  Indo-European  invasions.  In 
the  case  of  many  an  institution  or  custom  it  is  difficult,  or  even  impos- 
sible with  our  present  knowledge,  to  determine  the  nationality  of  its 
several  elements.  Some  aspects  of  the  transition  may  be  traced  most 
distinctly  in  Crete.  After  the  destruction  of  Cnossus  and  Phaestus  we 
find  the  Cretans  thoroughly  impoverished  and  devitalized,  as  is 
proved  by  their  utter  inability  to  repair  the  damage.  When  these 
sites  came  to  be  reoccupied  with  poor  dwellings,  the  magnificent 
palace  was  in  like  manner  superseded  by  a  smaller  and  cheaper  home 
of  the  European  type,  built  for  a  king  of  scant  means  and  narrow 
sway.  Art  was  the  same  in  technique  but  all  inspiration  was  gone. 
Naturalism  yielded  to  stiff  geometric  patterns.  This  style,  after  re- 
maining in  the  background  from  the  early  bronze  age,  now  reasserted 
itself.  The  graceful  spirals,  octopi,  flowers,  leaves,  and  tendrils  of 
Minoan  culture  were  driven  from  the  field  by  zig-zags,  triangles, 
checkers,  and  meanders.  The  same  changes  were  taking  place 
throughout  the  Minoan  area;  they  were  in  fact  most  pronounced  on 

9  The  Atticans  and  islanders  are  called  laones  in  earliest  literature;  Iliat]  xiii.  685;  Hymn 
to  Delian  Apollo  147.  The  linguistic  relation  of  laones  to  lones  is  not  clear;  Kretschmer, 
Clotta,  I.   14,  n.  4.     Attica  is  called  laonia  by  Solon,  Arist.   Const.  Ath.  5. 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE         35 

the  Greek  peninsula,  whence  they  extended  to  the  rest  of  the  Aegean 
region.  I'he  artistic  worth  varied  according  to  locality  from  the 
barbarous  specimens  found  in  earliest  Sparta  to  the  far  more  graceful 
forms  of  Crete  and  Rhodes,  where  Minoan  traditions  were  relatively 
strong.  Everywhere  the  quality  improved  throughout  the  age.  For 
obvious  reasons  the  renaissance  was  speediest  in  Crete.  Her  artistic 
activity  of  this  period  is  typified  by  the  mythical  Daedalus,  whose 
fame  finds  an  echo  in  the  Iliad?^ 

Before  the  close  of  the  period,  however,  the  Cretans  were  outdis- 
tanced by  the  lonians,  who  having  passed  from  the  decadent  Minoan 
to  the  geometric  style  rapidly  emerged  from  this  condition.  Their 
artists  adopted  for  vase  paintings  and  ornamental  work  in  ivory, 
bronze,  and  silver  more  lifelike  representations  of  man  and  nature, 
with  a  tendency  to  processional  and  heraldic  groupings,  with  a  fond- 
ness for  winged  men,  women,  and  beasts  and  for  human-headed  ani- 
mals. These  features,  commonly  described  as  Orientalizing,  may 
have  been  due  to  contact  with  the  East  in  the  early  Middle  Age,  but 
had  developed  to  a  degree  of  artistic  merit  far  superior  to  their 
Oriental  patterns. 

Contributions  to  this  stage  of  progress  were  made,  not  only  by  the 
Aegean  Greeks,  but  also  by  the  Phoenicians,  who  too  were  heirs  of 
Minoan  culture.  Their  geographical  situation  on  a  narrow  coast 
made  them  a  sea-faring  folk.  On  the  downfall  of  the  Cretan  naval 
power  their  mariners  voyaged  into  the  Aegean  sea,  where  they  traded 
with  the  Greeks  in  the  manner  described  by  Homer.  Their  chief  ser- 
vice to  civilization  was  the  transmission  of  writing  from  the  Minoans 
to  the  Hellenes  of  the  Middle  Age.  The  Minoan  linear  script,  com- 
prising word  signs  and  syllable  signs,  gradually  grew  simpler,  chiefly " 
through  the  dropping  of  characters.  In  Cyprus  it  was  limited  to 
syllabic  signs,  and  in  Syria  a  further  step  was  taken  when  the  number 
of  these  signs  was  reduced  to  twenty-two,  each  standing  for  a  single 
consonantal  sound,  whereas  the  vowels  remained  unrepresented. 
Receiving  this  script  from  the  Phoenicians,  probably  about  900,  the 
lonians  transformed  it  into  a  phonetic  alphabet.  Till  the  opening  of 
the  seventh  century,  however,  its  use  remained  extremely  rare.  Mean- 
while Greeks  and  Phoenicians  continued  to  interchange  wares  and 

10  Transition  in  art;  Burrows,  Discoveries,  98  f.  Survivals  of  graceful  Mycenaean  pat- 
terns on  geometric  vases;  Wide,  Ath.  Mitt.  XXII.  233-58.  Superiority  of  Crete  and 
Rhodes;  Walters,  Anc.  Pottery,  I.  276.  Daedalus;  Iliad  xviii.  590  ff . ;  cf.  v.  60;  xviii.  497; 
xxiii.  743. 


36  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

art  patterns.  As  the  lonians  were  the  more  highly  endowed  race,  it  is 
likely  that  they  gave  more  than  they  received,  and  that  much  which 
has  hitherto  been  described  as  Phoenician  should  be  credited  to  the 
Greeks.  From  the  ninth  to  the  seventh  century  accordingly  it  was 
not  the  Phoenicians  but  the  lonians  who  were  leaders  in  the  geometric 
and  "  Orientalizing  "  art  which  extended  from  the  Euphrates  to  Italy 
and  Sicily.^^  In  an  age  of  general  poverty  we  find  throughout  the 
area  once  Minoan  a  remarkable  tendency  to  refinement  and  luxury 
among  the  nobles  most  noticeable  in  the  lonians.  In  peace,  especially 
during  the  sumptuous  religious  festivals,  they  indulged  in  the  luxury 
of  trailing  gowns  of  linen,  richly  dyed  in  colors  from  the  purple 
mollusk,^^  and  adorned  themselves  with  a  profusion  of  jewelry. 
Their  costliest  and  most  artistic  works  still  surviving  are  gold  orna- 
ments of  various  forms  and  silver  cups,  plates,  and  shields,  all  richly 
decorated  with  scenes  from  mythical  or  real  life.  Everywhere  too 
the  Greeks  of  the  period  cultivated  singing  and  enjoyed  the  music 
of  the  lyre  and  pipe. 

The  geometric  motive,  which  prevailed  till  near  the  end  of  the 
period,  was  derived  in  part  from  weaving;  and  the  nobles  and  kings 
wore  robes  adorned  with  inwoven  or  embroidered  patterns  in  the  pre- 
vailing art.  In  fact  the  entire  life  of  this  area  was  undergoing  a 
profound  transformation,  manifested  as  distinctly  in  dress  as  in  any 
other  external  feature  of  society.  The  laborer,  conservative  and  eco- 
nomical, continued  even  in  historical  Greece  to  wear  the  waist-cloth. 
The  chiton,  obviously  a  Semitic  word  meaning  linen,  was  a  newer  gar- 
ment sewn  in  the  form  of  a  sleeveless  shirt  which  covered  the  body 
and  hips,  and  which  could  be  girt  in  at  the  waist  by  a  broad  belt.  A 
more  stately  chiton,  adapted  to  gods  and  kings,  doubtless  too  the  holi- 
day attire  of  all  who  could  afford  the  luxury,  reached  from  neck  to 
ankles.  The  tightness  of  the  dress,  whether  short  or  long,  is  a 
heritage  from  Minoan  costume. ^^ 

Still  more  conservative  was  the  garb  of  women.  The  goddess 
Artemis  Orthia  at  Sparta  wore  a  robe  seemingly  composed  of  a  low- 
cut  waist  with  shoulder  straps,  belt  and  tight  skirt  of  strongly  Minoan 

11  The  alphabet;  Evans,  Scripta  Minoa,  I.  SO-Q'I;  Petrie,  W.  M.  F.,  Formation  of  the 
Alphabet  (Macmillan,  1912);  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.  I.  1.  224-9. —  This  phase  of  culture  is 
well  outlined  by  Poulsen,  F.,  Der  Orient  unci  die  friihgriechische  Kunst  (Leipzig,  1912), 
but  he  errs  in  giving  the  leading  place  to  the  Phoenicians;  cf.  Hogarth,  Ionia  and  the 
East,   10,   82  ff.,   94  ff . ;   Ephesus,    184   (contribution   by   C.    Smith). 

12  Iliad  xiii.   685. 

13  Short  chiton;  Dawkins,  BSA.  XIII.  82  (ill.);  XV.  d1.  iv.  Long  chiton;  op.  cit.  101, 
fig-  g. 


ARTEMIS   ORTHIA 
(Lead  figurine  from  the  Artemisium) 


(From  the  Francois  Vase) 


FIBULAE 


93117 


3a  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

aspect.  A  great  innovation  of  the  age,  however,  was  the  fibula,  a 
safety-pin  of  varying  form  and  complexity,  which  brought  about  a 
revolution  in  dress.  This  method  of  fastening  was  used  in  the 
peplos,  a  woman's  gown  which  reached  from  neck  to  feet.  It  was 
a  rectangular  cloth  folded  double  above  the  waist  line  and  drawn  up 
under  the  belt  so  as  to  form  a  pouch  around  the  body.  Gradually 
prevailing  over  all  other  styles,  it  became  the  Doric  gown  of  the 
historical  age.  The  hair  of  women  and  men  alike  grew  long  and 
hung  down  in  several  heavy  strands  on  both  sides  of  the  face,  held 
in  order  by  a  band  encircling  the  head.  Although  these  articles 
of  dress  began  to  appear  early  in  the  Mycenaean  period,  it  was  not 
till  the  Middle  Age  that  they  displaced  the  Minoan  patterns. ^^ 

One  of  the  most  important  constructive  elements  in  the  new  civiliza- 
tion, which  gradually  emerged  from  the  ruins  of  the  old,  was  the  rise 
of  the  iron  industry.  In  the  fourteenth  century  this  manufacture 
was  well  developed  in  the  Hittite  country  of  eastern  Asia  Minor. 
The  metal  was  mined  in  the  region  afterward  known  as  Pontus,  and 
the  process  of  hardening  it  to  steel  is  indicated  by  its  use  for  sword 
blades.  Thus  writes  a  Hittite  king  to  another  person,  probably  the 
Egyptian  pharaoh :  "  As  regards  your  writing  to  me  for  pure  iron, 
there  is  no  pure  iron  prepared  in  my  storehouse.  ...  As  soon  as  it 
is  ready,  I  will  forward  it  to  you.  Now  I  am  sending  you  an  iron 
sword  blade."  The  use  of  the  metal  for  tools  and  weapons,  extend- 
ing westward,  reached  Crete  in  the  thirteenth  century,  where  iron 
axes,  picks,  swords,  and  spear  heads  have  been  found  in  and  about 
some  beehive  tombs  of  that  age.  Thence  its  use  passed  more  slowly 
over  the  disturbed  Aegean  area  to  Laconia,  Attica,  and  Thessaly, 
and  to  their  colonies.  Its  penetration  into  Laconia  seems  to  have 
been  especially  slow.  Although  from  the  beginning  of  the  period 
bronze  objects  abound  in  Laconian  deposits,  no  iron  has  been  found 
in  the  strata  below  the  eighth  century.  In  fact  the  immigrants  of 
Doric  speech  arrived  in  Peloponnese  in  the  early  transition  from 
bronze  to  iron.  While  the  metal  was  still  scarce  the  Peloponnesians, 
like  other  Greeks,  began  to  use  it  as  money.  The  pieces  so  employed 
were  in  the  form  of  a  spit  or  of  a  round  bar.  Still  later  came  the 
use  of  this  metal  in  tools  and  weapons. ^^ 

14  Artemis  Orthia  (?)  in  terracotta;  Dawkins,  BSA,  XIII.   107,  fig.  33  a.    The  peplos  was 
common   in  Homeric  life;  //.  v.  424  f . ;   vi.  90  ff . ;   Od.  xviii.  292  ff. 

For  the  peplos  of  later  time,  see  p.    132.    On  the  beginnings  of  these  new  styles;   Oel- 
mann,   F.,  Jahrb.  arch.  Inst.  XXVII.  38-51. 

15  In  Hellenic  tradition  iron  was  first  mined  and  wrought  by  the  Chalybians,  located  in 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE         39 

The  superior  power  of  steel  in  weapons  of  attack  rendered  neces- 
sary the  strengthening  of  the  defensive  armor.  The  round  or  oval 
targe,  reinforced  by  a  central  bronze  boss,  took  the  place  of  the  huge 
man-covering  shield,  which  however  lingered  on  by  the  side  of  the 
improved  pattern.  At  the  same  time  the  warrior  protected  his  head 
with  a  helmet  topped  by  a  high  bronze  crest,  his  body  with  a  hauberk 
of  metal  plates  that  opened  in  front  and  behind,  and  bronze  greaves 
for  the  legs  below  the  knees. ^"^ 

Those  who  had  the  means  and  the  intelligence  to  procure  the  im- 
proved equipment  gained  through  it  a  political  superiority  over  their 
neighbors.  The  working  of  the  iron  mines  in  Mount  Taygetus, 
which  separates  Laccnia  from  Messenia,  accrued  to  the  advantage 
of  the  Spartans,  who  waged  frequent  wars  of  conquest  with  their 
weaker  neighbors,  with  the  result  that  before  the  end  of  the  eighth 
century  they  had  brought  all  Laconia  under  their  sway.  In  the  in- 
tervals of  peace  they  exercised  their  prowess  in  hunting  wild  animals 
on  the  neighboring  mountains.  In  like  manner  the  lonians  of  Greece 
and  of  the  adjacent  islands  drew  iron  from  the  mines  of  Euboea  and 
Seriphos.  As  in  the  Minoan  age,  the  noble,  equipping  himself 
with  heavy  armor,  rode  to  war  in  a  car  driven  by  his  squire.  When 
before  the  close  of  the  period  the  chariot  was  discarded,  the  noble 
bestrode  his  steed  and  rode  to  battle,  his  mounted  squire  by  his  side; 
or  he  took  command  of  a  light  galley  propelled  by  oars  and  a  mast, 
and  armed  with  a  submarine  ram  for  assailing  the  enemy's  craft. 

Corresponding  changes  were  taking  place  in  religion.  For  a  time 
the  cremation  of  the  dead,  doubtless  accompanied  by  a  weakening  of 
belief  in  the  power  of  ghosts,  tended  to  supersede  inhumation;  but 
in  the  end  the  burial  of  the  unburned  body,  without  wholly  displac- 
ing the  other  form,  prevailed  though  in  toml)s  too  small  to  be  looked 
upon  as  dwellings.  Men  continued  accordingly  to  worship  the  dead. 
Still  greater  reverence  was  paid  to  heroes,  who  as  sons  or  near  descen- 

the  Pontic  region;  Hdt.  i.  28;  Aesch.  Prom.  714;  Xen.  Anab.  v.  5.  1.  This  view  is  con- 
firmed by  recent  discovery.  C)n  the  eastern  origin  of  the  industry,  see  series  of  articles  in 
Zeitsch.  f.  Ethnol.  beginning  in  1907.  For  the  letter  quoted,  see  Mitt,  dcr  vorderasiatischen 
Gesellschaft,  XVIII.  61,  n.  1.  It  was  written  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  probably  ad- 
dressed to  Rameses  II  of  Egypt.  The  industry  must  have  been  flourishing  from  the  four- 
teenth century  or  earlier.  Iron  in  Crete,  Boyd  (Hawes),  Gournia,  12;  Burrows,  Discov- 
eries, 101  f.  An  iron  knife  found  at  the  Menelaion;  Wace,  Droop,  BS.A.  XV.  143.  Use  as 
money;  Xen.  Lac.  Const,  viii.  3;  Plut.  Lye.  3,  9;  cf.  Head,  Hist.  Num.  434,  438.  A  bundle 
of  such  spits,  no  earlier  than  the  seventh  century;  Dawkins,  BSA.  330.  The  notion,  widely 
prevailing,  that  iron  was  introduced  into  Greece  from  central  Europe  is  due  to  a  wrong 
dating  of  the  Hallstatt  deposits.  For  a  better  dating  see  Beltz,  Zeitschr.  f.  Ethnol.  XLV. 
700. 

ifi  Survival  of  the  Minoan  shield  in  Homer,  Iliad,  vi.  117  f . ;  vii.  219;  xv.  645  f.  Among 
the  Spartans,  Tyrtaeus  xi.  23  f.  (Botsford,  Source  Book,  143).  The  new  equipment;  Lang, 
World  of  Homer,  79;  Evans,  JHS.  XXXII.  290;  Beloch,  Griech.  Cesch.  I.  1.  212  f. 


40 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


dants  of  the  .Q;ods,  were  gigantic  in  stature  and  strength.  Having 
lived  mightily  among  men,  they  died  and  were  buried;  but  their 
spirits  remained  powerful  to  harm  or  bless.  Greatest  of  all  heroes 
was  Heracles,  whose  cult  was  already  widespread  over  Hellas. 
Many  heroes  "remained  local.  The  Spartans  worshipped  Menelaus 
and  Helen  at  a  great  hero-shrine,  heroon,  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
Eurotas,  whereas  the  chief  hero  of  the  Athenians  was  Theseus,  to 
whom,  while  king,  they  ascribed  the  political  unification  of  Attica.^" 
The  Indo-European  and  Minoan  religions  gradually  melted  into 
one.  The  Northern  invaders  adopted  Minoan  Artemis  and  Aphro- 
dite, apparently  with  little  change.  The  immigrants  to  Miletus  were 
as  receptive  of  native  cults  as  of  native  blood.  The  desire  to  se- 
cure the  protection  of  the  local  deities  and  the  good  will  of  the  Carians 
went  hand   in  hand  with  greed   for  the  properties  of  these   gods. 


SUBMARINE-RAM 
(Vase  painting) 

Identifying  their  own  sky-deity  Zeus  with  the  god  of  the  double 
axe,  they  converted  the  shrines  and  sacred  domains  of  the  Carian 
deity  to  their  own  service.  In  like  manner  their  Artemis  usurped 
the  property  and  various  attributes  of  the  Great  Mother,  Cybele. 
Elsewhere  Zeus  was  identified  with  the  son  of  Cretan  Rhea.  The 
character  and  attributes  of  the  archer  Apollo,  especially  his  healings, 
purifications,  and  oracles,  seem  to  be  in  considerable  part  Minoan.^® 
These  are  mere  suggestions  of  that  amalgamation  which  with  our 
present  knowledge  it  is  impossible  to  analyze  in  detail.     At  least 

17  Cremation  in  early  Sparta;  Wace.  BSA.  X.  293.  Prevalence  of  inhumation,  Wace  and 
Dickens,  BSA.  XIII.  155  ff . ;  cf.  Ridgeway,  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy,  1909-10. 
p.  124.  At  Athens;  Poulsen,  Dipylongraber,  10  ff.  In  Homer,  on  the  other  hand,  burning 
is  the  exclusive  custom.— Discovery  of  the  coffin  of  the  hero  Orestes  in  Arcadia;  Hdt.  i. 
68.  Death  and  burial  of  Theseus;  Plut.  Thes.  35  f.  The  Menelaion;  Wace,  Droop,  and 
Thompson,  BSA.  XV.  108  ff. 

18  Combination  of  Zeus  and  the  god  of  the  double  axe  (labrys)  is  Zeus  Labraundios,  to 
whom  no  less  than  six  altars  in  Miletus  were  devoted;  Wiegand.  Abhdl.  Berl.  Akad.  1908. 
p.  27.  Artemis  and  Cybele;  Roscher,  Lex.  I.  588  ff.  Apollo;  Swindler  Cretan  Elements  tn 
the  Cult  and  Ritual  of  Apollo  (Bryn  Mawr  dissert.,   1913). 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE         41 

we  are  warranted  in  assuming  that  no  deity  of  historical  Greece  may 
safely  be  regarded  as  purely  Indo-European  or  purely  Minoan, 
and  that  the  native  race,  endowed  with  a  creative  genius  in  religion 
as  in  art,  contributed  far  more  than  the  incoming  Northerners  to 
Hellenic  belief  and  ritual.  The  prevailing  tendency  today  is  to 
assign  to  the  invading  people  the  sunnier  aspects  of  religion,  while 
leaving  to  the  natives  the  gloomy  features,  including  magic,  the 
worship  of  ghosts,  the  doctrine  of  sin,  and  its  purification  by  wash- 
ing in  blood. 

It  is  significant,  too,  that  as  in  the  Minoan  past,  the  great  deities 
of  the  Middle  Age  were  mainly  goddesses,  such  as  Athena  at  Athens, 
Artemis  at  Sparta  and  Ephesus,  and  Hera  at  Argos.  The  worship  of 
these  heavenly  women  was  intimately  bound  up  with  the  public  life 
of  the  cities  wherein  they  severally  made  their  homes.  The  dwelling 
of  the  deity  imitated  the  European  type  of  palace.  In  the  ninth 
century  the  Spartans  erected  to  Artemis  Orthia  a  temple  consisting  of 
a  wooden  frame,  with  walls  of  unburnt  brick  resting  on  a  foundation 
of  stone.  The  apex  of  the  gabled  roof  was  supported  by  an  interior 
row  of  wooden  columns,  running  lengthwise  through  the  centre.  It 
was  a  small  building  less  than  fifteen  by  thirty  feet  in  extent,  designed 
mainly  as  a  shelter  for  the  deity  and  her  utensils  and  gifts,  whereas 
the  worshippers  gathered  about  the  great  altar  outside.  The  goddess 
herself,  represented  by  a  piece  of  wood  rudely  carved,  was  so  small 
that  the  priestess  could  hold  it  in  her  hands.  In  origin  a  nature 
goddess,  she  gave  fertility  to  flocks  and  fields,  and  was  patroness  of 
youths  in  their  athletic  training,  and  of  girls,  who  worshipped  her  in 
choral  song  and  in  masked  nocturnal  processions.^^ 

Summarily,  the  Dorians  and  lonians,  occupying  the  area  once  most 
thoroughly  permeated  with  Minoan  culture,  were  its  principal  heirs 
In  material  civilization,  religion,  government,  and  social  structure  they 
were  essentially  alike;  and  it  was  owing  chiefly  to  developments  be- 
ginning near  the  close  of  the  Middle  Age,  above  all  to  the  brilliant 
growth  of  industry,  commerce,  and  intellectual  life  among  the  lonians, 
that  in  the  historical  period  the  leading  communities  of  the  two 
races  differed  widely  from  each  other. 

11.     Aeolian  Colonization  and  Culture 

While  lonians  and  Dorians  were  occupying  the  central  and  south- 

i9Paus.  iii.   16.  7-10;Bosanquet,  BSA.  XH.  331^3;  Tillyard,  op.  cit.  351-93;   Farrell,   op. 
cit.  XIV.  48  ff. 


42  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ern  parts  of  the  Aegean  islands  and  Anatolian  coasts,  the  Aeolians  of 
Thessaly  and  Boeotia  were  engaged  in  a  parallel  moveanent  of  col- 
onization. They  settled  in  Lesbos,  where  Mytilene  gained  the  first 
rank  in  population  and  power.  Chios,  too,  they  occupied.  On  the 
adjoining  mainland  they  founded  twelve  settlements,  among  which 
were  Cyme  and  Smyrna. ^°  The  Aeolian  colonists  had  been  but 
slightly  touched  by  Minoan  culture  and  only  in  its  decadent  form. 
Most  of  them  were  men  of  new  blood  and  fresh  ideas,  the  first  Euro- 
peans whom  we  can  clearly  know.  In  all  probability  it  is  mainly 
their  life  that  is  pictured  by  Homer.  His  age,  home,  and  person- 
ality are  still  under  controversy.  Are  the  epics  attributed  to  him, 
the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  the  work  of  one  poet  or  of  a  long  suc- 
cession of  minstrels?  Whether  an  individual  or  a  collective  unit, 
did  Homer  live  on  the  Greek  mainland  or  in  the  Anatolian  colonies, 
soon  after  the  close  of  the  Minoan  age,  hence  about  1100,  or  three 
centuries  later?  Do  his  poems  picture  a  single  phase  or  successive 
phases  of  culture?  These  problems  are  still  pressing  for  solution. 
The  present  volume  has  no  space  for  the  details  of  the  controversy. 
It  must  limit  itself  to  the  presentation  of  a  view  which  seems  to  the 
writer  most  reasonable  in  the  light  of  the  known  facts. 

Most  probably  the  Minoans,  like  the  contemporary  Orientals,  had 
a  written  literature  of  chronicles,  songs,  and  epics.  However  that 
may  be,  centuries  before  Homer,  "  Achaean  "  minstrels  chanted  lays 
of  war  and  adventure  in  the  palaces  of  the  glorious  Minoan  age. 
Through  song  and  story  the  memories  of  Minoan  splendor  were 
vividly  retained  to  the  end  of  the  colonial  period.-^  Tradition  may 
well  have  been  aided  by  the  survival  here  and  there  of  an  old  palace, 
and  more  abundantly  of  rich  furniture,  gold  cups,  inlaid  swords  and 
other  artistic  objects,  preserved  as  heirlooms  in  the  families  of  the 
great.  In  these  ways  material  from  the  golden  age,  and  from  that 
of  decadence,  came  down  to  the  time  of  Homer,  who  well  knew  the 
art  though  not  the  artists.--  The  minstrel  predecessors  of  Homer 
lived  in  Thessaly  and  its  neighborhood.  The  gods  are  therefore 
Thessalian,  their  home  is  Mount  Olympus;  the  Thessalian  local 
coloring  is  strong;  and  the  political,  social,  and  religious  atmosphere 
is  European  rather  than  Minoan. 

20Hdt.   i.   149-51;  Strabo  xiii.  1  f. 

21  Possibly  the   songs  in   Minoan   script   may   have   survived   till  the   introduction   of  the 
Hellenic  alphabet;   Evans,  JHS.  XXXII.  287  f. 

22  Cf.   Lang,    World  of  Homer,  32  f. 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE        43 

Among  the  colonists  to  Asia  Minor  came  bards  with  their  lays 
and  traditions;  and  there  the  struggle  of  the  immigrants  with  strange 
environment  stimulated  the  poetic  genius  to  heroic  efforts.  Among 
them  was  Homer,  the  supreme  genius  of  epic  song.  His  home  was 
Smyrna  or  Chios,  where  dwelt  Aeolians  and  lonians  mixed.-''  His 
dialect  accordingly  combines  those  of  the  two  races,  while  the  life 
of  his  neighborhood  is  Aeolic  modified  by  Ionian  influence.  He 
lived  about  800,  and  may  have  composed  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey, 
not  by  incorporating  earlier  lays  or  by  merely  adding  to  an  existing 
epic,  but  by  totally  new  creations,  yet  from  tradition  contained  in 
extant  songs.  After  his  time  his  poems  underwent  some  changes, 
especially  during  the  eighth  and  seventh  centuries.  Thus  it  hap- 
pened that  Homer's  poems,  which  are  mainly  Indo-European,  became 
the  inspiration  and  the  literary  models  of  the  historical  Greeks.  The 
life  he  pictures  is  not  homogeneous  but  a  mingling  of  the  traditional 
and  the  ideal  with  contemporary  facts.-* 

Living  no  long  time  after  an  age  of  colonization,  Homer  knew 
how  a  city  was  founded.  The  Phaeacians  of  old,  he  informs  us, 
dwelt  in  Hypereia,  near  the  Cyclopes,  who  continually  vexed  them. 
"  Thence  the  godlike  Nausithoiis  made  them  depart,  and  he  carried 
them  away,  and  planted  them  in  Scheria,  far  off  from  men  that  live 
by  bread.  And  he  drew  a  wall  about  the  town,  and  built  houses  and 
made  shrines  for  the  gods  and  meted  out  the  fields."  He  became 
king  of  the  city,  and  at  his  death  his  sceptre  passed  to  his  son.^^ 

The  land  was  distributed  on  an  aristocratic  principle.  Wood  and 
pasture  remained  common  to  all,  whereas  special  domains  were  re-^ 
served  for  the  king  and  the  gods,  while  to  the  great  men,  the  king's 
councillors  and  commanders  of  troops  in  war,  were  granted  large 
estates,  to  be  worked  by  their  slaves,  hired  men,  or  tenants^  The 
common  freeman  received  a  lot  in  the  city  for  his  dwelling  and  in 
the  country  a  field  for  cultivation.  Such  ownership  of  land  as 
existed  was  vested  in  the  family,  and  was  not  subject  to  transfer  by 
sale.2« 

Country  life.  Slaves  and  common  freemen  lived  the  crudest  lives 
devoid  of  every  comfort.  The  hut  of  the  swineherd  had  no  table, 
chair  or  bed.     Laertes,  driven  from  the  throne  of  Ithaca  because  of 

23  p.    33. 
24  H.   Civ.  2-5. 

25  Od.  vi.  6  ff. ;  cf.  Athen.  iv.  63,  for  illotment  of  landing  at  the  founding  of  Syracuse. 

26  Od.  xiv.  211;  xv.  488  ff. ;  II.  xi.  68  f . ;  xviii.  542  ff. 


44  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

old  age,  retired  to  the  country,  where  he  lived  a  poor  man :  "  Thy 
father  abides  there  in  the  field,  and  goes  not  down  to  the  town,  nor 
lies  he  on  bedding  or  rugs  or  shining  blankets,  but  all  the  winter 
he  sleeps  where  sleep  the  thralls  in  the  house,  in  the  ashes  by  the 
fire,  and  is  clad  in  sorry  raiment.  But  when  the  summer  comes  and 
the  rich  harvest-tide,  his  beds  of  fallen  leaves  are  strewn  lowly  all 
about  the  knoll  of  his  vineyard  plot.  There  he  lies  sorrowing."  ^^ 
We  see  the  same  old  man  "  in  the  terraced  vineyard,  digging  about  a 
plant,  clothed  in  a  filthy  chiton,  patched  and  unseemly,  with 
clouted  leggings  of  oxhide  bound  about  his  legs,  against  the 
scratches  of  the  brambles,  and  long  sleeves  over  his  hands  by  reason 
of  the  briars,  and  on  his  head  he  wore  a  goatskin  cap;  "  ^*  or  trudg- 
ing home  weary  at  night  to  receive  his  food  prepared  by  an  old 
Sicilian  woman.  Out  of  keeping  with  this  sorry  life  is  the  fact 
that  he  was  the  proprietor  of  a  "  rich  and  well-ordered  farm,  that 
he  had  won  for  himself  of  old,  as  the  prize  of  great  toil  in  war. 
There  was  his  house,  and  all  about  it  ran  the  huts  wherein  the 
thralls  were  wont  to  eat  and  dwell  and  sleep,  bondsmen  that  worked 
his  will."  -^  We  watch  the  laborers  plough,  plant,  reap,  thresh,  dig 
trenches,  build  stone  fences,  fell  trees,  and  dispute  over  the  bounda- 
ries of  their  fields.  They  produced  nearly  everything  they  needed; 
they  rarely  went  to  town,  to  purchase  bronze  or  iron  for  their  forges; 
and  they  seem  to  have  been  cut  off  from  all  political  life. 

The  city.  The  city  was  small.  Therein  lived  the  king,  the  no- 
ble and  wealthy  with  their  household  slaves,  and  the  common  agri- 
cultural class  whose  estates  were  conveniently  near.  There,  too,  dwelt 
potters,  curriers,  bronzesmiths,  and  a  few  merchants,  who  dealt  in 
useful  metals  and  in  imported  Eastern  luxuries.  Into  the  harbor 
sailed  Phoenicians  in  their  ships  laden  with  "  countless  gauds,"  and 
while  they  traded  they  kidnapped  children,  profitably  combining 
commerce  with  robber}^  Among  a  people  of  action  the  pirate  was 
more  esteemed  than  the  lazy  merchant.^"  The  city  was  but  rudely 
fortified.  The  palace  was  like  the  Mycenaean  of  simple  form,  con- 
sisting of  a  great  hall  with  central  hearth,  bath  and  sleeping  rooms, 
and  a  vestibule  leading  to  a  front  court.  The  splendid  furnishings 
described  by  Homer  were  either  heirlooms  or  a  mere  memory  of  a 
richer  and  more  cultured  age. 

27  Od.  xi.  187  ff. 

28  Od.  xxiv.  226  ff. 

29  Od.  xxiv.  205  ff. 

30  Od.  viii.  158  ff. ;  xv.  425  ff. 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE        45 

Government:  the  king.  The  Homeric  government  contrasts  with 
the  Minoan.  The  monarchy  appears  in  its  simplest  elements;  yet 
the  enormous  pretensions  of  the  king  may  be  a  breath  from  the 
Minoan  South.  He  was  a  near  descendant,  preferably  a  great  grand- 
son of  Zeus  or  some  other  god.'*^ 

His  honor,  too,  was  from  Zeus,  lord  of  counsel,  who  cherished 
him,  granted  him  glory,  and  furnished  him  even  with  thoughts. 
His  sceptre,  the  sign  of  his  power,  was  made  in  heaven  and  given 
by  a  god  to  the  founder  of  his  dynasty.  The  people,  therefore, 
prayed  and  hearkened  to  him  as  to  a  god.^'-  Here  we  have  an  ap- 
proach to  the  Oriental  god-king.  Among  the  Greeks  of  Homer's 
time,  however,  these  vast  boastings  were  empty;  the  king  maintained 
his  place  only  by  superior  personal  ability,  as  in  semi-barbarous 
life;  ^^  and  his  power  depended  on  the  number  of  troops  he  led. 
Thus  with  Agamemnon  "  followed  the  most  and  goodliest  folk  by 
far;  and  in  their  midst  himself  was  clad  in  flashing  bronze,  all 
glorious,  and  was  preeminent  amid  all  warriors,  because  he  was  good- 
liest and  led  folk  far  greatest  in  number."  ^*  Relations  were  per- 
sonal, and  no  theory  of  government,  or  even  idea  of  government  in 
the  abstract,  had  yet  arisen. 

Ordinarily  the  kingship  was  hereditary;  yet  if  the  son  was  too 
young  or  otherwise  incompetent,  the  sceptre  might  pass  to  a  brother 
or  other  relative.  Occasionally  a  new  family  came  to  the  sceptre. 
In  Ithaca  some  kind  of  popular  election  was  thought  of  to  fill  the 
throne  of  Odysseus,  in  case  the  natural  heir  should  not  succeed. ^'^ 

For  support  the  king  depended  on  the  great  estate  attached  to  the 
sceptre,  personal  or  family  property,  gifts  from  his  subjects,  his  large 
share  of  booty  and  choice  portions  of  sacrificial  victims.  He  wore 
no  crown  or  purple  robe,  but  dressed  and  equipped  himself  little 
better  than  other  nobles. 

The  State.  In  this  period  and  among  these  people  the  state  was 
a  crude  undeveloped  institution,  with  functions  correspondingly  few 
and  ill-defined.  The  duty,  clearly  conceived,  of  protecting  the  popu- 
lation from  foreign  enemies  made  the  king  a  general,  the  commander- 

31  II.  xiii.  4-19  ff. ;  xxi.   187  ff. 

32  II.  ix.  302  f. ;  X.  33. 

33  //.  iii.    166-70,    179. 
34//.  ii.  577  ff. ;  cf.   i.  281. 

sr^  II.    ii.    100   ff. ;    XX.    181    ff.,    307    f.    (cf.    Thuc.    i.    13).     Brother   inherits;    II.    ii.    106   f. 
Election  suggested;   Od.  xv.   521  f. 


46  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

in-chief  of  the  army.  The  need  of  protecting  the  state  itself  from 
domestic  foes,  from  treason  and  rebellion,  gave  him  judicial  power. 
It  was  no  less  incumbent  upon  the  government  to  avert  the  anger  of 
the  gods  and  to  secure  their  good  will  and  beneficence.  From  this 
need  arose  the  king's  priestly  character.  Notable  is  the  fact  that 
the  state  had  not  yet  acquired  the  function  of  protecting  the  lives 
and  property  of  the  citizens;  that  was  a  private  affair.  One  who  slew 
another  fled  from  the  country  to  escape  the  vengeance  of  the  mur- 
dered man's  kin,  or  remained  on  condition  of  paying  a  sum  accepta- 
ble to  the  kinsmen.^''  With  such  things  the  government  had  nothing 
to  do.  Likewise  it  was  incumbent  on  each  individual  to  protect 
his  own  property  from  thieves  and  robbers.  There  were  no  police  or 
officers  of  justice,  and  in  time  of  peace  no  army.  It  often  happened, 
however,  that  the  disputants  brought  their  case  for  arbitration  to  the 
king,  queen,  or  councillors.  In  the  famous  trial  scene  pictured  on 
the  shield  of  Achilles  the  question  seems  to  be  whether  the  slayer 
has  paid  the  blood  money  to  the  kin.  "  The  folk  were  gathered  in 
the  assembly  place;  for  there  a  strife  was  arisen,  two  men  striving 
for  the  blood-price  of  a  man  slain;  the  one  claimed  he  had  paid  full 
atonement,  expounding  to  the  people,  but  the  other  denied  him  and 
would  take  naught;  and  both  were  fain  to  receive  judgment  at  the 
hands  of  an  arbiter.  And  the  folk  were  cheering  both,  as  they  took 
part  on  either  side.  And  heralds  kept  order  among  the  folk,  while 
the  elders  on  polished  stones  were  sitting  in  the  sacred  circle,  and 
holding  in  their  hands  staves  from  the  loud-voiced  heralds.  Then 
before  the  people  they  rose  up  and  gave  judgment  each  in  turn. 
And  in  the  midst  lay  two  talents  of  gold,  to  give  to  him  who  should 
plead  most  righteously."^"  Probably  the  councillor  who  received  the 
loudest  applause  from  the  people  was  deemed  the  wisest  judge. 
Here  is  the  faint  beginning  of  popular  jurisdiction  which  culminated 
in  the  courts  of  Athens  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  b.  c.^* 

The  council.  The  king  was  absolute  only  on  the  battlefield,  where 
he  exercised  the  power  of  life  and  death. ^^  It  is  true  that  there  was 
no  constitutional  way  of  checking  him  or  of  calling  him  to  account; 
but  in  point  of  fact  he  was  limited  by  the  council  of  elders  and  by 

sail.  ii.  661  ff.;   ix.  632  f . ;  xxiii.  85  ff. 

37//.   xviii.  497-508.    The  two  talents  were  a  small  sum;  cf.  //.  xxiii.  269. 

38  P.    250  ff. 

39//.  ii.  391-3;  cf.  Arist.  Polit.  iii.  14.  5. 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE        47 

the  popular  assembly.  The  members  of  the  council  (boule)  had  the 
same  honors  and  titles  as  the  king.  They,  too,  are  "  sceptre-bearing 
kings  "  and  "  fosterlings  of  Zeus."  The  King  was  himself  a  coun- 
cillor, and  merely  the  first  among  equals.''"  Whereas  the  council  was 
an  essential  element  of  government,  the  king  was  not  so  considered, 
as  his  presence  was  unnecessary  to  the  assembly  of  that  body  or  the 
transaction  of  business  by  it."*^  Individual  members  rebuked  him 
sharply,  denounced  him  as  unfit  to  rule,  and  often  disobeyed  his 
command.     They  were  haughty,  quarrelsome  and  insubordinate. 

The  right  to  sit  in  council.  The  right  to  give  advice  depended 
on  the  wisdom  of  age  —  hence  the  members  were  called  elders  —  on 
lineage  or  success  in  war.'*-  The  number  was  small,  never  more  than 
a  dozen.  Any  man  of  influence  in  the  community,  especially  with 
ability  to  raise  and  command  military  forces,  was  sure  to  be  given 
a  place  in  the  council  by  the  king;  and  when  once  a  seat  was  es- 
tablished it  became  hereditary.*''  Usually  the  councillors  assembled 
round  the  table  of  the  king,  and  began  business  after  partaking  of  his 
hospitality.  The  discussion  lasted  till  all  agreed.  The  idea  of  vot- 
ing or  of  majority  was  totally  absent.** 

There  were  no  specialized  functions  or  departments  of  adminis- 
tration; individually  and  collectively  the  councillors  assisted  and 
limited  the  king  in  all  his  duties,  military,  judicial  and  religious. 
Though  they  had  no  legal  way  of  coercing  the  king,  their  collective 
will  generally  prevailed.  It  required  but  a  slight  shift  in  the  po- 
litical balance  to  change  the  kingship  into  an  aristocracy.  In  the 
absence  of  Odysseus  his  country  was  kingless,  virtually  an  aristocracy, 
at  the  mercy  of  turbulent,  avaricious  nobles,  in  whom  the  poet,  whose 
sympathies  were  with  the  royal  family,  could  recognize  no  legitimate 
authority. 

The  assembly  of  commons.  For  the  commons  the  Zeus-nurtured 
prince  cherished  supreme  contempt,*^  but  in  practice  he  had  to  heed 
their  will.  In  war  all  fighters,  in  peace  all  men  within  or  near  the 
city  attended  the  assembly  called  by  king  or  noble.  Often  the  ques- 
tion brought  before  them  had  previously  been  considered  in  coun- 
cil; *°   they   were   usually   such   as   affected   the   people   and   whose 

40  11.  ii.  24,  86,  98;  xiv.  27;   Od.  vii.  49  f. 

41/;.  X.  43;  xviii.  497  ff.     Od.  vi.  54  f. 

42/7.  iii.  108-10;  vi.  79;  xi.  816;  xiv.  110  ff. ;  xvii.  248;  xxiii.  788. 

43  II.  xiv.  109  ff, ;  Od.  xi.  505  ff. 

44/;.  ii.  13  ff.,  30  ff.,  ix.  69  ff.,  89  ff . ;  Od.  i.  26  ff. 

45  /;.  ii.  198  ff. 

46  /;.  ii.  84  ff. 


48  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

execution  required  their  cooperation.  The  chief  speakers  were  the 
king  and  councillors,  though  commoners  were  not  wholly  debarred.*^ 
The  commons  expressed  assent  by  shouting;  their  disapproval  by 
silence  points  to  remarkable  self-restraint.  Ordinarily  their  opinion 
prevailed;  in  their  gathering  lay  a  germ  of  democracy,  which  was  to 
grow  and  ripen  to  perfection  in  Greek  states  like  Athens.  The  ten- 
dency of  the  time,  however,  was  to  abridge  this  influence  in  the 
aristocratic  interest.  In  Ithaca  during  the  king's  long  absence  the 
nobles  neglected  to  summon  it;  they  themselves  "  all  together  went  to 
the  assembly  place,  and  suffered  none  others  to  sit  with  them,  either 
of  the  young  men  or  of  the  elders."  **  By  degrading  the  office  of 
king  and  by  neglecting  to  call  the  assembly  or  by  restricting  it  to  their 
own  kinsmen  and  partisans,  the  nobles  were  already  converting  the 
monarchy  into  an  aristocracy. 

Religion.  In  the  religion  of  Homer  we  find  a  striking  contrast  with 
the  Minoan  age.  The  people  of  whom  he  speaks  feared  no  ghosts, 
nor  venerated  heroes  or  fetishes  or  the  dead  or  monsters.  The  few 
abnormal  creatures  who  existed  in  imagination  were  not  the  objects 
of  worship.  All  the  gods  had  human  form,  and  with  the  exception 
of  the  lame  smith  Hephaestus,  all  were  models  of  beauty.  They 
differed  from  men  only  in  their  superior  stature,  strength,  and  physi- 
cal perfection,  in  the  character  of  their  food  and  drink  (ambrosia  and 
nectar),  in  their  dwelling-place  and  life  of  ease,  and  in  their  immor- 
tality. They  needed  sleep,  suffered  pain,  and  were  sometimes 
wounded  by  men  in  battle.*^  Though  Zeus  was  superior,  all  were  lim- 
ited in  knowledge  and  power.  They  pursued  their  several  inclina- 
tions, now  in  disobedience  to  Zeus,  now  winning  him  by  persuasion  or 
cajolery.  At  times  his  throne,  like  that  of  the  mortal  king,  was  in- 
secure,^°  and  again  his  vast  superiority  seems  to  indicate  a  growing 
monotheism. 

The  council  and  society  of  the  gods.  The  great  deities  dwelt 
together  as  a  family  on  the  summit  of  snowy  Olympus.  There 
they  spent  their  time  in  happy  feasting;  or  schemed  and  quarreled; 
or  under  the  presidency  of  Zeus,  father  of  gods  and  men,  they  sat 
in  council  on  the  destinies  of  human  kind.^^  Their  society  was  a 
reflection  from  that  of  earth,  yet  freer  from  moral  restraint.     They 

47  II.  i.  68  ff. ;  ii.  98,  212  ff. 

48  Od.  xvi.  361   ff. 

49/;,   ii.  477  ff. ;  V.  339,  858-61,  885  f . ;  xxi.  406  f. 

50  Intimations  of  in.surrection;  II.  i.  399;  viii.  201  ff. 

51//.  viii  (beginning). 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE        49 

had  all  the  evil  as  well  as  good  qualities  of  man;  indeed,  the  poet 
appears  to  take  deli<j;ht  in  holding  up  the  frailties  of  some,  as 
Aphrodite  and  Ares,  to  ridicule. 

Their  relations  with  men.  In  their  dealings  with  men  they  were 
moved  by  caprice;  they  helped  those  whom  they  loved  and  brought 
misfortune  on  the  objects  of  their  hate,  or  upon  those  who  neglected 
sacrifice  or  the  fulfillment  of  a  vow  to  thcm."^-  Yet  in  a  limited 
measure  they  were  the  protectors  of  right  and  the  avengers  of  wrong. 
"  Yea,  and  the  gods,  taking  on  all  manner  of  forms  in  the  likeness  of 
strangers  from  foreign  lands,  wander  through  the  cities,  beholding  the 
insolence  and  the  righteous  spirit  of  men."  ^^  They  rewarded  the 
good,  but  loved  not  evil  deeds. 

Morally  imperfect,  like  human  beings,  these  gods,  as  Homer  rep- 
resents them,  with  their  clear-cut,  athletic  forms,  their  majestic  beauty, 
their  incessant  free  activity,  were  the  chief  inspiration  of  Hellenic 
sculpture  from  the  sixth  century  through  the  period  of  its  acme  and 
decline. 

Priests  and  temples;  seers.  Homer  knew  no  priestly  caste  or 
hierarchy.  The  gods  were  so  near  to  men  as  to  demand  no  inter- 
mediaries. The  father  prayed  and  sacrificed  for  the  family,  the 
king  and  nobles  for  the  state,  and  each  individual  for  himself.  Here 
and  there  were  temples,  most  of  them  doubtless  only  large  enough 
to  shelter  an  image.  Such  a  shrine  was  under  the  care  of  a  priest, 
who  though  dear  to  the  gods,  was  as  a  rule  not  a  noble  or  in  any  way 
superior  to  other  men.  Seers  were  classed  along  with  craftsmen. 
Calchas,  the  most  celebrated,  refers  to  himself  as  a  man  of  inferior 
social  rank.^*  The  nobles  had  not  yet  monopolized  religion  or  con- 
verted it  to  a  political  instrument. 

The  dead.  In  the  treatment  of  the  dead  and  in  their  view  of 
the  spirit  life,  the  Homeric  Greeks  were  far  removed  from  the  Min- 
oans.  Vestiges  of  embalming  may  have  been  borrowed  from  the 
south;  but  the  Aeolians  of  Homer  always  burned  the  body  and  de- 
posited the  ashes  in  an  urn,  over  which  they  heaped  a  cairn;  on  the 
top  of  this  mound  they  set  a  pillar.  In  general  opinion  all  souls 
passed  unconditionally  to  the  realm  of  Hades  in  the  far  West  or 
beneath  the  earth,^^  there  to  lead  a  shadowy  joyless  existence.     The 

52  11.  I  64;  iv.  26  ff.,  51  f. 

53  Od.  xvii.  485  ff. 

54  //.   i.  80. 

55  Od.  xi.  11  ff.;  XX.  61. 


J^v 


50  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

> 

iftiade  of  Achilles  says,  "  Speak  not  comfortably  to  me  of  death, 
glorious  Odysseus.  I  should  rather  be  upon  the  field  as  the  servant 
of  another,  of  one  who  had  no  land  and  little  property,  than  a  king  of 
all  the  dead."  ^« 

Elysium.  Once  only  the  poet  speaks  of  a  future  world  of  hap- 
piness, the  Elysian  plain  in  the  extreme  West,  "  where  life  is  easiest 
for  men.  No  snow  is  there,  nor  yet  great  storm  nor  any  rain;  but 
always  ocean  sendeth  forth  the  breeze  of  the  shrill  west  to  blow  cool 
on  men."  ^"  There  dwells  fair-haired  Rhadamanthus,  brother  of 
Minos;  and  thither  the  gods  will  carr}'  Menelaus,  because  he  has 
Helen  to  wife  and  through  her  is  deemed  a  son  of  Zeus.  Thus  this 
paradise  is  open  to  a  few  favorite?  of  the  gods. 

Morals.  In  moral  living  the  Homeric  Greeks  derived  little  aid 
from  their  deities.  It  is  true  that  religion  taught  them  to  pity  and 
protect  stranger  suppliants,  to  honor  parents,  to  refrain  from  over- 
weening pride,  and  in  a  general  way,  by  precept  rather  than  by  the 
example  of  the  gods,  to  cultivate  righteousness.^^  But  their  moral 
progress,  whatever  it  was,  must  be  attributed  to  purely  human  effort. 
Their  virtues  were  preeminently  military  —  above  all,  physical 
strength  and  bravery.  The  bad  man  was  the  coward  and  weakling. 
Wisdom  was  skill  in  the  use  of  arms  or  in  the  management  of  men, 
or  shrewdness  in  daily  life.  The  Greeks  were  proverbially  deceit- 
ful; and  Homer's  gods  and  men  indulge  in  clever  lying;  yet  Achilles 
exclaims:  "Hateful  to  me  as  the  gates  of  Hades  is  the  man  who 
conceals  one  thing  in  his  breast  and  speaks  another."  ^^  Patience, 
temperance,  and  self-control  are  commended  in  the  hero  Odysseus. 
The  spirit  of  justice  and  general  good  order  within  the  state  and  the 
army  is  pronounced;  the  number  of  crimes  is  remarkably  few  in  view 
of  the  lack  of  supervision  on  the  part  of  the  government. 

Family  life.  Perhaps  the  most  charming  feature  of  Homeric  life 
is  the  love  of  husband  and  wife,  of  parents  and  children  —  the  af- 
fection which  binds  the  family  together  in  a  moral  unity.^°  This 
bond  was  drawn  the  closer  by  the  circumstance  that,  unaided  by  the 
state,  the  family  had  to  protect  its  own  property  and  lives  and  avenge 
its  wrongs. "^^     The  father  was  head  of  the  family  but  the  mother's 

56  Od.  xi.  488  ff. 

57  Od.  iv.  563  ff. 

58  Hospitality  ;Orf.  v.  4-17  f . ;  ix.  270;  xiv.  404  ff.    Honor  to  parents;  II.  xxiv.  4868  Od.  v. 
394  ff. 

59  n.  ix.  312  f. 

60  n.   vi.  394  ff. ;  xxiii.  222  f. ;  Od.   v.  394  ff. 

61  11.   xiv.  484  f. 


48 


SOUTHERN    ITALY 
and    SICILY 


0  ao  W  60  80        lUO 


TRANSITION  FROM  MINOAN  TO  HELLENIC  LIFE        51 

place  was  equally  honorable,  and  descent  throui^di  her  was  highly 
esteemed.*'^  Her  father  had  received  for  her  hand  a  bride-price  in 
oxen,  which  went  to  her  as  dowry;  "^  and  the  lady  of  rank  chose  her 
husband  from  among  the  suitors."'*  Women  sat  with  men  in  the 
great  hall  and  went  about  freely  in  city  and  country."'"'  Sometimes  the 
queen  alone  held  the  royal  office.""  This  honorable  and  influential 
place  of  woman  was  one  to  which  Indo-European  and  Minoan  senti- 
ments and  usages  alike  contributed.  It  is  true  that  her  pacific 
nature  and  her  physical  inferiority  made  her  the  prey  of  war,  the 
victim  of  the  brutal  conqueror;  and  often  her  husband's  lack  of  re- 
spect for  the  marriage  bond  subjected  her  to  distressing  humiliation; 
yet  at  least  in  the  higher  class  these  disadvantages  were  in  part  made 
good  by  the  love  and  honor,  the  chivalrous  treatment  and  social 
power  accorded  her  alike  by  kin,  townspeople,  and  guests  from  other 
states. 

62//.   XX.   105  ff. ;   Od.  i.  Ail. 

G3II.  ix.   146  f. ;   xi.  242  ff. ;   Od.   ii.    195  ff. ;   xi.   117;   cf.  vi.   159. 
64  Od.  V.  282  f. ;  and  the  story  of  Penelope  and  the  suitors. 

esNausicaa;   Od.  vi.    15  ff.     Arete;   vii.   67  ff.     Receives  suppliants;   Od.  vi.  310  ff.     Free- 
dom of  common  women;  //.  xx.  252  ff. ;  Od.  xviii.  27  ff. 
66//.   vi.  425;   vii.  468  f . ;   Od.  xi.  254  ff.,  281   ff. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

The  reports  of  excavations  mentioned  on  p.  31  n.  1  contain  also  valuable  inter- 
pretations of  the  discoveries.  Lang,  A.,  World  of  Homer  (Longmans,  1910), 
especially  useful  in  distinguishing  between  Minoan  and  Homeric  conditions; 
Hogarth,  D.  G.,  Ionia  and  the  East  (Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1909);  The 
Ancient  East  (Home  Univ.  Libr.)  ;  Burrows,  R.  M.,  Discoveries  in  Crete,  ch. 
xii ;  Evans,  A.  J.,  "  Minoan  and  Mycenaean  Elements  in  Hellenic  Life,"  JHS. 
XXXII  (1912),  277-97;  Montelius,  O.,  "The  Geometric  Period  in  Greece," 
Brit.  Assoc,  74th  meeting  (1905)  ;  Poulsen,  P.,  Der  Orient  und  die  friihgriech- 
ische  Kunst  (Teubner,  1912);  Wide,  S.,  "  Nachleben  mykenischer  Ornamentik," 
{Ath.  Mitt)  XXII  253-58;  Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,  v.,  "  Ueber  die  ionische 
Wanderung,"  Sitzb.  Berl.  Akad.  (1906),  pp.  59-79;  Aly,  W.,  "  Delphinios, 
Beitriige  zur  Stadtgeschichte  von  Milet  und  Athen,"  Klio  XI  (1911),  1-25; 
Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.,  I,  1,  180-229;  Allen,  T.  W.,  "Lives  of  Homer,"  JHS., 
XXXII,  250-60;  XXXIII,  19-26;  "  Canonicity  of  Homer,"  Class.  Quart,  VII, 
221-33;  Murray,  G.,  Rise  of  the  Greek  Epic  (2d.  ed.,  Oxford:  Clarendon 
Press,  1911),  speculative;  Seymour,  T.  D.,  Life  in  the  Homeric  Age  (Macmil- 
lan,  1907);  Leaf,  W.,  Troy;  A  Study  of  Homeric  Geography  (Macmillan, 
1912)  ;  Homer  and  History  (Macmillan,  1915)  ;  Roussel,  A.,  La  religion  dans 
Homere  (Paris,  1914);  Sihler,  E.  G.,  Testimonium  Animae,  ch.  iii;  Lawton, 
W.  C,  Art  and  Humanity  in  Homer  (Macmillan,  1896)  ;  Dickins,  G.,  "Homeric 
House,"  JHS.,  XXIII,  325-34 ;  Bonner,  R.  J.,  "  Administration  of  Justice  in 
the  Age  of  Homer,"  Class.  Philol.,  VI  12-36;  Chadwick,  H.  M.,  The  Heroic 
Age  (Cambridge:  University  Press,  1912).  For  many  other  works  on  Homer, 
see  H.  Civ.,  p.  6  f. 


COIN  OF  MET-         COIN  OF  AEGINA, 
APONTUM  6TH  CENTURY 


CHAPTER  IV 
ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION 

750-479 

Agriculture.  The  decline  of  Minoan  culture  had  been  accom- 
panied by  a  vast  depopulation,  made  good  only  in  part  by  the  infiltra- 
tion of  strangers.  In  the  Middle  Age  forests  grew  up  over  many  a 
field  that  had  once  been  tilled  or  occupied  by  human  dwellings.  As 
the  Hellenes  emerge  from  the  darkness  of  that  time,  we  find  them, 
at  the  close  of  the  eighth  century,  chiefly  engaged  in  grazing  and 
agriculture.  There  remained  abundant  public  land  on  the  mountain 
slopes,  on  which  the  citizens  freely  pastured  their  flocks,  and  cut 
wood  for  fuel  and  building.^  The  arable  fields  were  the  property  of 
king,  gods,  associations  of  various  kinds,  and  citizen  families.  Our 
chief  source  for  the  beginning  of  this  period  is  Hesiod's  Works  and 
Days.^  He  instructs  the  peasant  proprietor  "  first  of  all  to  get  a  cot- 
tage and  a  woman  and  an  ox  for  plowing,  and  all  necessary  furnish- 
ings in  his  house,"  ^  for  neighbors  do  not  like  to  lend;  "  keep  a  sharp- 
toothed  dog,  stint  not  his  food,  lest  a  day-slumbering  man  rob  thee  of 
thy  belongings."  *     His  advice  is  directed  chiefly,  however,  to  the 

1  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter,  Hesiod,   Works,  420  ff.,  509-11,  607  f. 

2  Other  material  which  may  be  used  as  sources  for  the  period  are  the  poems  of  Solon, 
Alcman,  Tyrtaeus  and  the  other  contemporary  authors,  the  works  of  later  writers  from 
Herodotus  to  Strabo  which  treat  of  this  age  and  subject.  Coins  are  especially  valuable, 
and  in  addition  the  vases  and  their  paintings,  and  the  few  extant  inscriptions  from  the 
period.  A  conception  of  the  fragmentary  and  widely  scattered  material  may  be  formed  by 
a  glance  at  the  footnotes  of  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.  I.  1.  264-308,  a  section  dealing  with  the 
economy   of   this   period.     Hesiod   lived   probably   about   700. 

3  Hesiod,   Works,  405  f. 
iOp.  cit.  604  ff. 

52 


ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION       53 

small  country  esquire,  whose  manor-house  stands  near  the  group  of 
slave  cabins.'"'  Yet  even  on  such  an  estate  life  is  simple  and  full  of 
toil.  The  lord  labors  along  with  his  slaves.  They  use  a  wooden 
plow  drawn  by  a  pair  of  steers,  a  mattock  for  breaking  the  clods, 
and  a  rude,  two-wheeled  cart  for  conveyance."  They  have  no  mill 
for  grinding  grain  —  wheat  or  more  commonly  barley  and  spelt  — 
but  crush  it  in  a  mortar,  after  threshing  it  on  a  hard-beaten  floor.'' 
Their  grain  and  wine  they  stow  for  the  winter  in  large  earthen  jars 
as  had  been  done  in  the  Minoan  age.  The  labors  of  the  seasons 
they  regulate  according  to  the  movements  of  the  stars  and  the  phe- 
nomena of  plant  and  animal  life.  The  rising  of  Arcturus  announces 
spring,  and  when  they  see  the  snails  climbing  the  plants,  they  sharpen 
sickles  for  the  harvest.^  Life  is  an  endless  round  of  toil,  with  a 
slight  relaxation  in  the  coldest  month,  when  the  fierce  northeast  wind 
brings  to  earth  many  a  lofty  oak  and  branching  pine  in  the  mountain 
dells;  or  in  hottest  summer,  when  the  tuneful  cicadae  shrilly  sing,  it 
is  permitted  the  lord  to  rest  in  a  shady  grotto,  while  he  eats  his  roast 
kid,  or  beef  and  drinks  his  Biblian  wine  well-mixed  with  water.^ 
We  catch  but  one  pleasing  glimpse  of  indoor  life,  where  the  unwedded, 
tender  girl  bides  near  her  dear  mother;  after  bathing  and  anointing 
herself  with  oil,  she  sleeps  peacefully  during  the  night,  while  out  of 
doors  the  homeless  polypous  gnaws  his  own  foot  in  dismal  haunts.^° 

Conditions  in  Attica  were  similar.  Besides  grain  and  grapes  this 
country  produced  an  abundance  of  honey,  figs,  and  olives.  The  oil 
was  used  for  anointing  the  body  and  in  the  preparation  of  food,  and 
much  remained  for  exportation.  The  government  carefully  regu- 
lated the  planting  and  care  of  trees,  the  location  of  hives,  the  digging 
of  ditches,  and  the  use  of  water  from  public  and  private  wells.^^ 

Country  life  grows  difficult.  The  incoming  northerners  had  in- 
fused Hellas  with  a  tremendous  physical  vitality.  The  rapid  increase 
of  population  made  country  life  more  and  more  difficult.  Peasant 
estates  divided  equally  among  the  sons,  soon  became  too  small  to  sup- 
port a  family  even  in  a  prosperous  season;  and  when  crops  failed, 
the  situation  of  the  poorer  farmers  grew  desperate.  Better  it  is,  says 
Hesiod,  to  bring  up  but  a  single  son,  especially  as  heirs  often  waste 

5  op.   cit.   502   (probably  cabins  rather  than   bams;   cf.   p.  44  above). 

6  Op.  cit.  423-5,  427  ff.,  436  ff.,  458  ff. 

7  Op.  cit.  597  ff.,  609  ff. 

sop.   cit.   564   ff. ;   cf.   383  ff.,  414  ff. 

9  Op.  cit.  504  ff.,  582  ff. 

10  Op.   cit.   519  ff. 

11  Laws  of  Solon  (Plut.  Sol.  23),  incorporated  from  earlier  regulations. 


WOMAN    SPINNING 
(From  a  vase  painting) 


A  POTTER  AT  WORK 
(From   a  vase  painting) 


OLIVE  INDUSTRY 

(From   a  vase  painting) 

(Inscription  reads:    "O,   Father  Zeus!    Would  that  I  might 

become   richi') 


ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION        55 

the  estate  in  litigation,  and  the  judges  are  ready  to  give  the  verdict  to 
the  one  who  brings  the  largest  bribe;  the  common  man  in  the  hands 
of  a  magistrate  is  like  a  nightingale  in  the  hawk's  clutches.  It  is 
well,  therefore,  eschewing  litigation,  to  work  and  save  and  avoid  bor- 
rowing.^- In  Attica  a  mortgage  pillar  was  placed  on  the  farm  of 
the  debtor;  and  in  failure  to  pay,  the  estate  fell  to  the  creditor.  In 
such  a  case  the  debtor  generally  became  a  tenant  on  the  land  he  once 
had  owned,  paying  his  lord  a  sixth  part  of  the  produce.  Further 
borrowing  placed  a  mortgage  on  the  security  of  his  own  person  or  on 
that  of  his  wife  or  children.  Such  debts  were  hopeless,  and  served  as 
a  step  to  slavery.  Some  escaped  their  doom  by  flight.^ ^  In  Boeotia 
day-slumbering  highwaymen  infested  the  roads.  Round  the  smith's 
forge  or  in  the  rude  club-houses  of  the  village  gathered  throngs  of 
homeless  beings,  who  filled  their  idle  hours  with  evil  plots. ^*  Every- 
where in  Attica  stood  mortgage  pillars,  holding  Black  Earth  in  slavery. 
Many  peasants,  once  free,  toiled  trembling  under  their  masters' 
caprices;  many  others  were  sold,  often  illegally,  into  foreign  lands. ^^ 
The  agricultural  population  was  fast  falling  into  slavery.  The  libera- 
tion of  the  Attic  peasantry  by  Solon  will  be  considered  in  another 
chapter  (vii).  The  gloomy  outlook  filled  the  Boeotian  poet  with 
darkest  forebodings  for  the  human  race.  While,  however,  he  was 
reiterating  his  only  proposal  for  a  cure,  "  Work  and  save,"  the  prob- 
lem was  elsewhere  finding  solution  in  the  growth  of  skilled  labor. 

The  rise  of  industry.  During  the  Middle  Age  the  highly  de- 
veloped Minoan  industries  had  almost  disappeared;  and  in  the  semi- 
barbarism  of  the  period  mankind  reverted  to  the  primitive  custom 
of  making  at  home  nearly  everything  needed  in  house  or  field.  The 
village  smith  and  potter  wrought  for  their  immediate  neighborhood. 
In  the  coast  towns  were  shipwrights  skilled  in  building  the  small, 
round-bottomed  boats  of  the  time  propelled  by  a  sail  and  at  most  by 
thirty  oars.  With  the  help  of  his  slaves  the  lord  built  his  own  house, 
and  women  wove  the  necessary  garments.  Only  the  rich  could  pur- 
chase a  few  luxuries,  as  tapestries,  jewelry,  and  medicine,  from  Ion- 
ian or  Phoenician  traders,  or  beautifully  dyed  woollens  and  linens 
brought  from  Lydia  and  Caria.  Gradually,  however,  as  life  became 
more  settled,  and  wealth  accumulated  in  the  hands  of  lords,  arose  a  de- 

12  Hesiod,   Works,  27  ff.,  35  ff.,  203  ff.,  220  f.,  376  ff.,  394  ff. 

13  Arist.   Const.  Ath.  3,   5,   12  (H.   Civ.  no.  27  f.). 

14  Hesiod,   Works,  493  ff. 

15  Solon,  in  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  12. 


ARMORERS  MAKING  SHIELDS 
(Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


SMITH'S  FORGE 
(Vase  painting,  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION        57 

mand  for  better  wares  than  could  be  supplied  by  unskilled  hands. 
To  meet  this  need  some  of  the  ])Oor  who  felt  cramy)ed  on  their  little 
farms,  or  were  made  homeless  by  economic  oppression,  began  manu- 
facturing on  a  small  scale.  Those  who  had  skill  and  thrift  grew 
wealthy.  Many  an  impoverished  lord  betook  himself  to  such  an 
occupation;  and  many  a  wealthy  noble  invested  part  of  his  capital 
in  trade. ^*^  Men  of  the  same  branch  of  industry  banded  themselves 
together  for  mutual  encouragement  and  protection.  The  guild,  thus 
arising,  patterned  itself  after  the  gens;  for  blood  was  the  firmest 
bond  which  united  men.  As  the  Alcmeonidae  were  sons  of  Alcmeon, 
the  smiths  of  Athens  called  themselves  the  "  sons  of  Bronze  " —  Chal- 
cidae.  There  were,  too,  the  Praxiergidae  ("  Handicrafts'  Sons  ") 
and  various  other  artisan  guilds.  In  these  times  work  was  no  dis- 
grace; and  the  fact  that  in  early  Attica  the  guilds  won  political 
privileges  speaks  well  for  their  reputation. 

Slavery.  Hand  in  hand  with  skilled  industry  developed  slavery. 
A  workman  who  could  buy  a  single  slave  for  his  shop  became  a  cap- 
italist on  a  small  scale,  which  was  generally  enlarged  with  future  pur- 
chases, till  the  master  outrivalled  the  old  noble  in  wealth  and  could 
contend  with  him  for  political  supremacy.  The  growth  of  industry 
was  accordingly  interwoven  with  the  political  and  constitutional  de- 
velopment of  Greece. 

Lydian,  Ionian,  and  Lesbian  industries.  The  industries  of  the 
new  age  had  their  principal  origin  in  Ionia  and  her  neighbor  Lydia, 
a  country  of  diverse  natural  resources.  Hence  it  was  that  in  the 
seventh  century  Lydian  headbands,  sandals,  and  golden  ornaments 
for  the  person  were  among  the  most  highly-prized  luxuries  of  Hellas. ^^ 
Soon,  however,  these  products  were  excelled  by  the  brilliant  efforts  of 
lonians  and  Lesbians.  Miletus  won  fame  for  her  finely  woven 
woollens  of  rich  violet,  saffron,  purple,  and  scarlet  colors,  and  her 
rare  embroideries  for  the  decoration  of  hats  and  robes.  Doubtless 
her  workshops  produced  a  wide  range  of  wares,  not  mentioned  in 
history,  such  as  were  .demanded  by  the  increasing  refinement  of  her 
civilization.  Second  only  to  Miletus  were  other  cities  of  Ionia,  and 
Mytilene  on  the  island  of  Lesbos.  Notably  Glaucus  of  Chios  dis- 
covered a  process  for  welding  iron,  which  proved  inv^aluable  in  the 

10  Examples  are  Hesiod's  father  (Works,  633  ff.)  and  Solon  (Arist.  Const.  Ath.  11). 
17  Cf.   Alcman  23  (H.  Civ.  no.  43) ;  Sappho  16. 


58  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

useful  and  fine  arts.  About  the  same  time  certain  Samians  intro- 
duced bronze  casting  into  Greece  from  the  Orient.^^ 

Aegina  and  Calchis.  Naturally  the  extension  of  skilled  industry 
over  Greece  was  from  East  to  West.  Aegina,  whose  scant  soil  forced 
the  people  to  industry  and  commerce,  produced  bronze  work  —  such 
as  cauldrons,  tripods,  and  sculptured  figures  and  groups  —  in  addi- 
tion to  small  wares  of  various  kinds.  In  Euboea,  on  the  strait  of 
Euripus,  Chalcis  became  a  thriving  industrial  city.  With  bronze, 
obtained  in  part  from  neighboring  mines,  and  with  the  purple  mollusk 
caught  in  the  strait,  she  manufactured  wares  for  war  and  peace  and 
costly  dyes  for  kings  and  nobles. 

Corinth.  In  industry  and  commerce  Chalcis  had  eventually  to 
yield  to  Corinth,  from  early  time  renowned  for  wealth.  Its  citadel 
was  Acrocorinthus,  a  steep  and  lofty  peak  commanding  a  view  of  the 
Isthmus  below  and  of  a  wide  expanse  of  country  all  about.  The 
two  harbors,  one  on  the  Saronic  Gulf,  the  other  on  the  Corinthian, 
afforded  easy  commerce  with  the  East  and  the  West.  To  avoid  the 
hazardous  doubling  of  Cape  Malea,  ships  here  unloaded  their  freight, 
which  under  a  toll  to  the  city  was  transi)orted  across  the  Isthmus. 
Early  dreams  of  a  canal  were  idle;  but  in  time  was  constructed  a 
tramway  for  hauling  ships  across.  The  city  was  not  simply  a  mart 
but  a  thriving  centre  of  industry,  which  produced  vases  showing 
Oriental  influence,  bronze  wares  for  utensils  and  arms,  well-woven 
and  beautifully  dyed  woollen  fabrics  for  clothing  and  tapestries. 
Even  the  lonians,  not  content  with  their  rich  native  fabrics,  welcomed 
the  Corinthian  robes  of  purple,  sea-green,  hyacinth,  violet,  and  bril- 
liant red.  In  the  vases  were  exported  wines,  olive  oil  and  toilet 
ointments.  These  activities  were  fostered  by  the  government.  The 
king  had  been  supplanted  by  the  members  of  his  gens,  the  Bacchiadae, 
who,  forming  a  close  aristocracy,  refused  intermarriage  with  any 
other  class.  During  their  ninety  years  of  rule  (647—557)  they  de- 
veloped the  useful  and  decorative  arts  to  a  high  stage  of  excellence; 
and  in  friendly  cooperation  with  Chalcis  they  extended  their  lines  of 
traffic  in  various  directions. ^^ 

Megara  and  Attica.  Immediately  to  the  north  of  Corinth  was 
Megara,  a  little  city-state  with  a  narrow  territory  extending  across 

18  Milesian  goods;  Democritus,  Temple  of  Artemis,  i,  in  Athen.  xii.  29.  Metallic  works; 
Hdt.   i.   25;   Pliny,  N.  H.   xxxv.    152. 

19  Wealthy  Corinth;  //.  ii.  570.  Harbors;  Strabo  viii.  6.  19-23.  Canal  and  tramway; 
Diog.  i  .99  (Per.  vi).  Bacchiadae;  Hdt.  v.  92;  Strabo  viii.  6.  20;  Euseb.  ed.  Schoene.  i. 
App.   p.  219, 


ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION         59 

the  Isthmus.  The  soil  was  stony,  scarcely  fit  for  anything  but  graz- 
ing. This  condition  compelled  the  Megarians  to  manufacture,  with 
their  scant  means,  coarse  woollens  and  heavy  potteries,  and  from 
both  their  narrow  coasts  to  traffic  with  the  East  and  West.  In  the 
seventh  and  sixth  centuries  Attica  remained  essentially  agricultural. 
It  did  export,  however,  oil  and  probably  wine  in  beautifully,  painted 
va.ses.  Her  great  industrial  and  commercial  development  belongs 
to  the  following  period.  Other  centres  of  industry  and  traffic  will 
be  mentioned  in  other  connections. 

Colonial  expansion,  about  750-550.  With  the  economic  develop- 
ment of  the  period  is  closely  connected  a  great  movement  of  colonial 
expansion.-**  While  in  agricultural  districts  the  departure  of  emi- 
grants lightened  the  burden  of  excessive  population,  the  growth  of 
thriving  cities  demanded  not  only  an  increased  food  supply  but  an 
importation  of  raw  materials  from  distant  countries,  and  markets  for 
manufactured  products.  Added  to  the  need  of  an  outlet  for  the  sur- 
plus population  and  the  requirements  of  industry  and  commerce, 
were  the  love  of  adventure  and  enterprise  and  the  fortune-hunting 
spirit  inborn  in  many  Greeks;  and  as  time  went  on,  not  a  few  were 
detached  from  their  home  countries  by  the  political  unrest  which  at- 
tended the  evolution  of  government  from  monarchy  to  aristocracy, 
tyranny  and  democracy. 

Minoan,  Etruscan,  and  Chalcidic  colonization.  The  Minoans 
had  traded  with  Sicily  and  with  Italy  as  far  north  at  least  as  Cam- 
pania, and  had  sent  colonists  thither.  A  last  remnant  most  probably 
was  the  Etruscan  people,  whose  Minoan  ancestors  came  to  Italy  no 
later  than  800.  Then  the  mariners  of  Chalcis  followed  in  the  Etrus- 
can path  ^^  to  Campania  for  barter  with  the  natives.  About  750  they 
planted  their  first  colony  in  Italy.  The  chief  object  was  trade,  as  we 
may  infer  from  its  location  on  the  little  island  of  Pithecussae  off  the 
promontory  of  Misenum.     Here  the  strangers  could   defend  them- 

20  For  the  beginnings  of  colonization  there  are  no  contemporary  sources.  The  precise 
dates  of  founding  given  in  late  chroniclers  are  reconstructions,  and  the  traditions  are 
strongly  colored,  especially  to  the  credit  of  the  Delphic  Apollo.  Although  incidentally 
Herodotus  (e.  g.  i.  163-7;  iv.  145-6'!)  touches  upon  colonization,  the  first  author  to  deal 
systematically  with  the  subject  was  Hellanicus  (FHG.  I.  p.  51-3).  After  him  came  Anti- 
ochus  (FHG.  I.  p.  181-4),  from  whom  Thucydides  (vi.  1-5)  drew,  Philistus  {FHG.  I.  p. 
185-92),  Ephorus  (.op.  cit.  p.  243  ff.),  and  Timaeus  (.op.  cit.  I.  193  ff . ;  IV.  640  f.).  These 
lost  writers  were  the  sources  for  Diodorus  v-viii;  Strabo;  Pliny,  N.  H.  iii-vi;  Pausanias; 
Scymnus  of  Chios  (GGM.  I.  196  ff.);  and  occasional  passages  in  other  writers.  A  little 
light    is   afforded    bv    contemporary    inscriptions. 

21  Minoan  colonies;  p.  28  above.  Chalcidic  colonies;  Peet,  Papers  of  the  British  School 
at  Rome,  IV.  294. 


60  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

selves  far  better  than  on  the  mainland.  It  was  a  lovely  isle,  with 
a  beautiful  landscape,  rich  soil,  and  an  exhaustless  supply  of  the  best 
clay  to  be  found  in  Italy.  From  there  they  crossed  over  to  the  main- 
land and  settled  Cumae,  by  ancient  repute  the  oldest  Greek  colony 
in  the  peninsula.  Its  founding,  however,  could  have  been  no  earlier 
than  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century.  Long  afterward  Cumae  in 
conjunction  with  some  Athenians  settled  Neapolis  on  the  Bay  of 
Naples.  The  Cumaeans  manufactured  vases  and  metal  wares  for 
trade  with  the  native  Ausonians,  in  whose  country  they  were  set- 
tled, and  with  the  Latins  farther  north.  Their  fields  unstintingly 
yielded  grain,  with  which  in  after  years  they  could  relieve  the  city 
of  Rome  when  distressed  with  famine. ^^ 

Cumaean  culture.  On  the  loftiest  hill  of  the  city  the  Cumaeans 
built  a  temple  to  Apollo,  in  which  they  erected  a  wooden  statue  no  less 
than  fifteen  feet  in  height."^  The  shrine  was  the  centre  of  culture, 
which  at  that  time  was  all  religious.  Here  the  Greeks  continued  to 
expand  the  myths  of  their  race,  making  Odysseus  (Ulysses)  and  other 
national  heroes  visit  the  shores  of  Italy  in  their  wanderings.  The 
volcanic  character  of  the  land  suggested  the  presence  of  super-nature 
—  the  terrific  battle  of  the  giants  for  the  ownership  of  a  fertile 
neighboring  plain,  the  cavernous  mouth  of  Hades'  realm,  and  the 
mysterious  abode  of  the  Sibyl,  Apollo's  prophetess,  who  wrote  her 
oracles  on  leaves.  This  was  the  first  Hellenic  centre  of  culture  with 
which  the  Romans  came  into  touch;  thence  they  borrowed  the  cult 
of  Apollo  and  the  art  of  writing. 

Other  Chalcidic  colonies.  Afterward  the  Cumaeans  with  other 
colonists  from  the  mother  city  founded  Zancle  —  the  "  sickle  "-shaped 
town  —  on  the  Sicilian  side  of  the  strait  of  Messene.  In  later  years 
after  receiving  an  accession  of  immigrants  from  Messenia,  it  came  to 
be  named  Messene  (Messana).  Other  Chalcidic  towns  were  Rhe- 
gium  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  strait,  and  Himera  on  the  northern 
coast  of  Sicily  far  to  the  west  of  Zancle.-* 

Achaean  colonies.  Meanwhile  Achaeans  from  northern  Pelo- 
ponnese  founded  Sybaris  in  the  instep  of  the  peninsula.  Built  in 
a  plain  which  was  unhealthful  yet  marvellously  productive,  the  town 
drew  abundant  wealth  from  the  soil.     Her  people  expanded  by  col- 

22Strabo  v.  4.  4,  9;  Livy  viii.  22.  5;  Pliny,  N.  H.  iii.  82;  Pais,  Anc.  Italy,  181  ff.— Livy 
ii.  9.  6;  34.  3. 

23  Caelius  Antipater,  in  Peter,  Relliq.  I.  p.  163. 

24  Sicilian  colonies  in  general;  Thuc.  vi.  2-5. 


ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION        61 

onization  and  conquest  till,  it  is  said,  they  ruled  over  four  nation- 
alities and  twenty-five  cities.  In  their  final  struggle  with  Croton, 
we  are  informed  with  undoubted  exaggeration,  that  they  placed  three 
hundred  thousand  men  in  the  field. -°  A  colony  on  the  west  coast, 
founded  partly  by  them  was  Posidonia  ^"  which  now  attracts  a  con- 
tinual stream  of  tourists  by  its  temy)le  ruins.  In  a  district,  malarial 
and  thinly  peopled  yet  surpassingly  fertile,  stands  the  temple  to 
Poseidon  imj)ressive  in  its  lonely  majesty.  Originally  agricultural, 
the  Achaeans  developed  a  great  commerce,  especially  as  intermediaries 
between  Ionia  and  Etruria.  Milesian  woollens  of  fiiie  texture,  brought 
to  Sybaris,  were  transported  across  the  peninsula  to  her  coast  col- 
onies, where  Etruscan  merchants  eagerly  bought  them.^^  Croton,  an- 
other Achaean  city,  acquired  a  territory  inferior  to  that  of  Sybaris, 
but  a  superior  fame  for  athletism  and  war.  Locri,  a  colony  from 
Locris,  remained  purely  agricultural,  hence  far  inferior  in  wealth  and 
population  to  the  great  Achaean  cities.  Here  arose  the  first  Indo-- 
European  law  code,  which  tradition  assigns  to  Zaleucus.^* 

Dorian  colonies :  Tarentum.  In  Italy  the  Dorians  made  one  set- 
tlement of  primary  importance  —  Tarentum,  founded,  according  to 
traditions,  from  Laconia  in  the  time  of  the  Messenian  wars.  It  was 
on  an  excellent  harbor  in  the  instep  of  Italy,  northeast  of  Sybaris, 
The  settlers  wrested  from  the  native  lapygians  a  wide  tract  of  land, 
in  which  they  occupied  themselves  with  farming  and  sheep-raising. 
Equally  important  were  fishing  and  the  preparation  of  purple  dye. 
The  Tarentines  developed  a  great  industry  in  weaving  and  dyeing 
fine  woollens  as  well  as  in  vase-making.  Their  wares  they  exported 
throughout  the  peninsula.  The  Greek  colonists,  and  by  no  means 
least  among  them  the  Tarentines,  profoundly  affected  the  history  of 
Italy.29 

Syracuse,  founded  734.  Among  the  earliest  colonizers  of  Sicily 
were  the  Corinthians.  Archias,  a  noble,  sailing  from  Corinth,  left  a 
band  of  settlers  on  Corcyra;  thence  proceeding  to  Sicily,  he  founded 
Syracuse  on  the  island  of  Ortygia.  The  fountain  Arethusa  supplied 
copious  fresh  water,  while  the  Great  and  Little  harbors  gave  certain 
promise  of   a   splendid   commercial   future.     The   colonists   divided 

25Diod.  xi.  90.  3;   xii.  9.   2;   Strabo  vi.   1.   13. 

26  Strabo  vi.  1.  1. 

27  Timaeu.s,  in  FHG.  I.  p.  205.  60. 

28  Polyb.  xii.  5  ff . ;  Strabo  vi.   1.   7  f. ;  p.  71  below. 

29  Died.  viii.  21;  Strabo  vi.  3.   1-4.    Debt  of  Rome  to  Greeks  of  Italy;  Pais,  Anc.  Italy 
ch.  xxi. 


62  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

among  themselves  the  adjacent  territory,  in  large  estates,  to  be  worked 
by  serfs  called  Cyllyrians.  We  do  not  know  the  origin  of  this  class 
but  evidently  the  native  Sices  formed  a  great  part  of  it.  Far  more 
numerous  than  their  lords,  they  corresponded  in  status  to  the  helots  of 
Laconia  described  below.  Thus  the  society  of  the  colony  differen- 
tiated into  great  landlords,  a  middle  class  of  merchants,  and  artisans, 
serfs,  and  purchased  slaves.  Soon  the  city  outgrew  the  island 
and  expanded  over  the  neighboring  plateau.  Under  favoring 
conditions  of  location  and  soil  Syracuse  was  destined  in  the  days  of 
her  greatness  to  become  the  most  populous  and  the  most  strongly 
fortified  city  in  Europe.^" 

Acragas  (Agrigentum)  and  other  colonies  in  Sicily.  Many 
other  Dorian  colonies  from  various  cities  were  planted  in  southern 
Sicily,  the  most  brilliant  of  which  was  Acragas.  Its  founders, 
"  after  long  toils  bravely  borne,  took  by  a  river's  side  a  sacred  dwell- 
ing place,  and  became  the  eye  of  Sicily,  and  a  life  of  good  luck  clave 
to  them  to  crown  their  inborn  worth."  Their  citadel  was  a  lofty 
ridge  two  miles  from  the  shore.  Beneath  this  shelter  on  the  south 
the  city  grew  up  on  the  high  ground  between  two  mountain  streams, 
which  join  below  before  flowing  on  to  the  sea.  The  river's  estuary 
served  as  a  harbor.  There  the  jars  of  oil  and  wine  produced  in  the 
rich  fields  about  the  city  were  loaded  for  shipment  to  the  eager  marts 
of  Carthage  whence  a  back-returning  stream  of  silver  marvellously 
enriched  the  Acragantines.^^  Other  colonies  of  Sicily,  to  be  named  in 
the  course  of  this  narrative,  need  not  be  mentioned  here.  A  wreath 
of  Hellenic  settlements  nearly  encircled  the  flowery  island.  Only  in 
the  west,  the  Phoenicians,  receding  somewhat  before  the  aggressive 
Greeks,  stubbornly  maintained  themselves. 

Importance  of  the  Western  Greek  colonies.  The  economic  and 
cultural  history  of  the  Italian  and  Sicilian  Greeks  is  closely  twined 
on  the  one  hand  with  that  of  the  mother  country,  on  the  other  with 
that  of  Rome.  They  interest  us  not  only  for  their  own  contributions 
to  civilization  and  their  reactive  stimulus  to  older  Hellas,  but  even 
more  as  a  mighty  factor  in  the  civilization  of  Italy,  and  through 
Italy  of  central  and  western  Europe. 

Improved  navigation   and  the  far  western  colonies:   Spain. 
The  earlier  voyages  to  these  shores  had  been  made  in  small  round- 
so  Hdt.  vii.  155;  Timacus,  in  FUG.  I.  p.  204.  56;  Dion.  Hal.  vi.  62.    Fortifications;   p. 
210  below. 

3iThuc.  vi.  4;  Strabo  vi.  2.  5.    Quotation,  Pindar,  Ol.  ii.  9  ff. 


ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION        63 

bottomed  boats  described  above.  In  the  seventh  century  developed 
a  somewhat  longer  vessel  with  Hatter  bottom  furnished  with  fifty 
oars  and  armed  with  a  bronze  I^eak  for  attack.  These  improved 
ships  conveyed  the  Samians,  and  more  actively  the  Phocaeans,  in 
their  distant  voyages  to  Iberia  (Spain),  whose  gold,  silver,  and  cop- 
per attracted  them.  Beyond  the  Pillars  of  Heracles  in  the  stormy 
Atlantic  the  Cassiterides  Isles  and  distant  Britain  yielded  tin,  a 
metal  chiefly  prized  as  an  ingredient  of  bronze.  In  the  tin  trade 
the  Phoenicians  were  intermediaries  between  Greeks  and  natives.^" 

Colonies  in  Gaul.  On  the  southern  coast  of  Gaul  Phocaeans 
founded  Massalia  (Marseilles),  long  the  chief  centre  of  Hellenic 
culture  in  the  western  Mediterranean,  mother  of  a  cluster  of  colonies 
in  Gaul  and  Iberia,  and  school  of  the  neighboring  barbarians,  who 
learned  there  to  speak  and  write  the  Hellenic  tongue.  The  Greeks  of 
this  region  brought  with  them  the  Ionian  laws  and  from  Ephesus  the 
cult  of  Artemis,  whose  temples  rose  in  every  city.  We  must  accord- 
ingly regard  the  Phocaeans  as  the  forerunners  of  Rome  in  the  work 
of  civilizing  southwestern  Europe."^ 

Northern  Aegean  colonies.  A  somewhat  different  interest  attaches 
to  colonial  movements  in  other  directions.  The  founding  of  settle- 
ments on  the  Thracian  sea  and  along  the  Hellespont  and  Propontis 
served  merely  to  expand  Aegean  Hellas  to  its  natural  limits.  In  the 
occupation  of  the  Chalcidic  peninsula  the  name  itself  suggests  that 
Chalcis  took  the  lead,  though  Eretria  and  Corinth  participated. 
The  country  was  rough,  but  the  chief  occupation  was  agriculture, 
along  with  fishing.  In  later  time  the  timber  of  the  region  proved 
a  source  of  revenue,  and  in  the  neighborhood  were  the  mines  of 
Mount  Pangaeus.  It  was  through  these  colonies  that  the  Macedonians 
of  the  interior,  a  backward  Hellenic  people,  slowly  acquired  the  civ- 
ilization of  their  progressive  southern  kinsmen.^'* 

Colonies  on  the  Hellespont  and  Propontis.  Meanwhile  the 
lonians  were  sailing  through  the  Hellespont  and  the  Propontis  and 
along  the  coasts  of  the  Black  Sea,  to  catch  the  tunny  fish,  to  trade 
with  the  natives,  and  to  plant  settlements  on  all  the  shores.  Miletus 
alone  is  said  to  have  founded  no  less  than  ninety  in  this  region.^^ 

32  Hdt.  i.  163;  iv.  152;  Strabo  iii.  2.  3,  6-10  (valuable  Spanish  products);  2.  13  f.  (Phoeni- 
cians);  5,  11   (Cassiterides). 

33Hdt  i.  163;  Thuc.  i.  13.  6;  Arist  Frag.  549  (Rose);  Timaeus,  in  FHG.  1.  p.  201. 
40;   strabo  iv.   1.  4  f. 

34  Thuc.  i.  56;  iv.  109,  110,  120,  123;  Strabo  x.  1.  8. 

35  Pliny,  N.  H.  v.  112;  Ephorus,  in  FHG.  I.  p.  260.  92. 


64  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Most  important,  however,  was  Byzantium  on  the  Propontis  —  the  most 
famous  among  the  colonies  of  Megara.  It  is  situated  on  a  spacious 
bay  in  touch  with  migrating  shoals  of  fish  —  an  exhaustless  source  of 
wealth  to  the  inhabitants.  Their  command  of  the  strait  enabled  them 
to  levy  tolls  on  passing  ships,  while  splendid  opportunities  for  com- 
merce, combined  with  a  strong  defensible  position,  further  contributed 
to  their  prosperity.  A  thousand  years  after  its  founding  this  city, 
under  the  name  of  Constantinople,  became  the  capital  of  the  Roman 
empire.^" 

Colonies  on  the  Black  Sea.  Although  Hellenic  settlements  sur- 
rounded the  Black  Sea  in  a  nearly  unbroken  chain,  their  civilization 
failed  to  penetrate  far  into  the  interior  or  materially  to  affect  the 
natives.  For  such  results  the  settlers  were  all  too  few.  To  Hellas 
the  Black  Sea  region,  while  offering  little  intellectual  aid,  furnished 
useful  products  —  especially  fish,  timber,  dyes,  wheat,  metals,  cattle, 
and  slaves.^" 

Naucratis,  Egypt.  In  another  direction  Greek  enterprise  was  to 
bear  rich  intellectual  fruit.  About  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century  Psammetichus  had  made  himself  master  of  Egypt  with  the 
help  of  bronze-clad  Ionian  and  Carian  rovers  of  the  sea.  He  and 
his  dynasty  were  therefore  most  friendly  to  the  Greeks.  A  settle- 
ment of  Ionian  traders  on  the  Canobic  channel  of  the  Nile  they  per- 
mitted accordingly  to  grow  till  it  became  the  colony  of  Naucratis. 
Here  under  the  protection  of  the  government  various  Greek  cities  of 
Asia  Minor  and  the  neighboring  islands,  together  with  Aegina,  estab- 
lished their  warehouses  for  trade. ^^  The  king  enlisted  many  Greek 
mercenaries;  the  natives,  whose  country  produced  few  grapes,  en- 
joyed the  wines  imported  from  Greece,  and  sent  in  exchange  the 
varied  products  of  the  Orient.  A  class  of  native  interpreters,  ac- 
quainted with  the  Hellenic  tongue,  grew  up,  who  entranced  the  curious 
tourist,  with  wondrous  tales  of  folklore  and  religion  and  medical 
skill,  of  engineering  and  building  achievement  in  the  erection  of 
pyramid  or  labyrinth  or  temple,  whose  immensity  and  durability 
awed  the  impressionable  Hellenic  mind.  The  importation  of  papyrus 
into  Greece  cheapened  writing  material,  while  the  elementary  facts  of 
geometry  and  astronomy,  brought  home  by  inquisitive  tourists,  stimu- 
lated the  birth  of  Hellenic  science  and  philosophy.     To  the  opening  of 

36Hdt.  iv.  144;  Strabo  vii.  6.  2;  (Scymnos)  717. 

37  Minns,  Scythians  and  Greeks,   440  ff. 

38Hdt.  ii.   151-82;  Strabo  xvii.   1.   18;   cf.   Hall,  Anc.  History,  527  ff. 


TRADE  IN  SILPHIUM 
(Vase  Painting) 


PENELOPE  AT  THE  LOOM 


66  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Egypt,  therefore,  we  may  trace  in  part  the  great  intellectual  awakening 
of  Hellas. 

Motive  and  effects  of  colonization.  It  is  unnecessary  in  these 
pages  to  mention  by  name  any  one  of  the  hundreds  of  other  Greek 
settlements  scattered  along  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean  and  of 
its  tributary  waters.  The  leading  motive,  as  has  been  noticed,  was 
economic,  expansion  of  trade,  and  provision  for  the  surplus  popula- 
tion of  a  marvellously  virile  race.  Among  the  effects  were  not  only 
the  bestowal  of  Hellenism  in  a  varying  degree  upon  the  peoples  of 
the  Mediterranean  basin,  but  also  the  enrichment  of  the  Greeks 
themselves,  and,  through  contact  with  the  world,  their  own  stupendous 
advance  in  civilization.  All  that  the  Europeans  and  their  colonists 
now  are  in  the  world,  the  Hellenes  were  then  in  the  Mediterranean 
basin  —  carriers  of  civilization  and  reaj>ers  of  political  and  economic 
profit  through  their  vital  and  intellectual  mastery. 

The  founding  and  the  organization  of  a  colony.  In  the  plant- 
ing of  colonies  the  Greeks  of  this  period  gradually  developed  a  body 
of  customs,  to  which  they  felt  morally  bound.  The  founding  city  — 
metropolis,  "  mother-state  " —  after  obtaining  the  sanction  of  the  Del- 
phic Apollo,  appointed  as  founder  a  citizen  of  noble  family,  to  con- 
duct the  colonists  to  their  new  home,  establish  the  government,  and 
after  death  receive  worship  as  a  hero.  Often  an  invitation  was  issued 
to  friendly  neighbors  to  take  part.  A  charter  of  incorporation  was 
drawn  up  which  constituted  the  proposed  settlement  as  a  community, 
named  the  founder,  provided  for  the  assignment  of  lands  and  for 
other  necessary  matters,  and  regulated  the  relations  between  the  mother 
and  daughter  cities.'^  The  tie  was  fundamentally  one  of  kinship, 
such  as  binds  parents  and  children :  "  Well  I  know  that  many  col- 
onies have  been,  and  will  be,  at  enmity  with  their  parents.  But  in 
early  days  the  child,  as  in  a  family,  loves  and  is  loved;  even  if  there 
come  a  time  later  when  the  tie  is  broken,  still  while  he  is  in  want 
of  education,  he  naturally  loves  his  parents  and  is  beloved  by  them, 
and  flies  to  his  relatives  for  protection,  and  finds  in  them  his  only 
natural  allies  in  time  of  need."  *°  These  words  of  Plato  testify  to 
the  strong  bond  of  filial  sentiment  which  showed  itself  in  the  partici- 
pation in  common  religious  festivals,  in  the  reciprocal  rights  and  hon- 

39  Decree  for  the  founding  of  Brea;  H.  Civ.  no.  73;  cf.  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  25;  IG.  IX. 
I.  no.   334.      See  also  Hdt.   iv.   159;   Thuc.   iii.   92;   Cic.   Div.   i.    1.  3. 

40  Plato,  Laws,  vi.   754  (Jowett). 


ECONOMIC  GROWTH  AND  COLONIAL  EXPANSION        67 

ors  extended  by  each  community  to  the  members  of  the  other,  and 
in  the  j:;eneral  continuity  of  religious,  social,  and  political  usages 
and  institutions  of  the  old  city  in  the  new.  A  colony  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  mother-state  usually  remained  politically  dependent, 
such  as  were  the  Athenian  settlements  of  the  fifth  century  known  as 
cleruchies  ("  lot -holdings  ") ;  but  so  strong  were  the  decentralizing 
tendencies  that  distant  colonies  became  forthwith  sovereign  states, 
permanently  united  with  the  mother-state,  however,  by  the  firmest 
bond  of  alliance  known  to  the  Greeks.*^  The  colonial  movement 
tended  accordingly  to  widen  the  sympathy  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of 
city-state,  while  the  experience  gained  in  the  framing  of  charters  and 
in  the  organization  of  new  communities  stimulated  the  development 
of  written  law  and  constitutions  and  ultimately  the  birth  of  political 
science. 

Commerce  was  greatly  promoted  by  the  invention  of  coinage.  Early 
in  the  Middle  Age  the  Minoan  currency  was  lost  to  the  world,  which 
in  consequence  returned  to  barter.  After  the  introduction  of  iron, 
spits  —  obols  —  of  that  metal  passed  as  small  currency.  In  the 
eighth  century  the  lonians,  reviving  the  Minoan  custom,  began  to 
use  as  coins  striated  drops  of  electron,  a  natural  amalgam  of  gold 
and  silver.  Probably  they  were  before  the  Lydians  in  the  adoption 
of  a  coinage.  From  the  early  seventh  century  Ionian  and  Lydian  is- 
sues may  be  approximately  dated.  West  of  the  Aegean  sea  the 
Aeginetans  were  the  first  to  stamp  coins.  Their  type  was  a  two- 
drachma  piece  of  about  194  grains,  giving  97  grains  to  the  drachma. 
The  latter,  considered  equivalent  to  six  current  obols,  would  furnish 
silver  for  an  American  quarter  of  a  dollar.  This  double-drachma 
was  called  a  "  tortoise  "  from  the  figure  of  that  reptile  stamped  on 
the  face.  It  passed  current  not  only  in  Aegina  but  also  for  a  long 
time  in  the  Greek  peninsula,  on  many  of  the  islands,  and  in  Hellenic 
colonies  of  Italy  and  Sicily. 

Chalcis  and  Eretria  were  not  far  behind  Aegina  in  coinage. 
Among  their  earliest  issues  were  various  denominations  in  electron. 
Their  standard  coin,  however,  was  a  silver  piece  weighing  about 
135  grains  and  therefore  much  lighter  than  the  Aeginetan.  Attic 
chronicles  of  later  time  regarded  this  piece,  too,  as  a  double  drachma. 
It  passed  current  in  the  numerous  Euboic  colonies,  and  was  adopted 

41  Hdt.  viii.  22;   ix.  28;  Thuc.   i.  56,  60;   v.   106. 


68  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

by  Solon  as  a  standard  for  Athens.  The  silver  contained  in  this 
drachma  is  worth  in  American  money  a  trifle  more  than  eighteen 
cents.*- 

42  Minoan  currency;  p.  00  above.  Iron  spits  at  Sparta;  p.  18.  Date  of  the  beginning 
of  Ionian  coinage;  Hogarth,  Ephesus,  75,  255;  Gardner,  Brit.  Ac.  III.  In  Asia  the  ratio  of 
electron  to  silver  was  10:1;  of  gold  to  silver,  131/3:1.  The  value  of  an  Aeginetan  drachma 
in  American  money  is  strictly  tvventy-si.\  cents;  of  the  Attic-Euboic  drachma  18%  cents. 
Ascription  of  the  earliest  coinage  to  the  Lydians;  Xenophanes,  in  Pollu.x  ix.  83;  Hdt.  i.  94. 
Possibly  they  were  the  first  to  coin  gold  and  silver  as  distinguished  from  electron,  of. 
Gardiner,  P.,  Hist,  of  Anc.  Coinage,  pp.  72  ff. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

I.  Economy.  Whibley,  Companion,  518-47;  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch,  I.,  264- 
308,  brief  treatments  of  the  period.  In  the  following  general  works,  consult 
the  Content  and  the  Indices;  Guiraud,  P.,  La  propriety  jancicre  en  Grece 
(Paris,  1893);  Etudes  economiques  sur  I'antiquitc  (Paris,  1905);  Francotte,  H. 
L'industrie  dans  la  Grece  ancienne,  2  vols.  (Brussels,  1900)  ;  Meyer,  E.,  Kleine 
Schrijtcn  (Halle,  1910),  includes  several  useful  articles  on  economy.  For  the 
coins,  see  Hill,  G.  F.,  Historical  Greek  Coins  (ISIacmillan,  1906);  Head,  B.  V., 
Ilistoria  Numorum  (2d.  ed.,  Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1911);  Babelon,  E., 
Traits  des  monnaies  grecques  et  romaines,  3  vols.  (Paris,  1901-10)  ;  Gardner, 
P.,  A  History  of  Ancient  Coinage,  700-300  B.  C.  (Oxford,  1918).  On  the 
ancient  ship.  Tarn,  W.,  in  JHS.,  XXV,  137  ff,  204  ff.  On  the  plough,  Gow, 
A.  S.  F.,  in  JHS.,  XXXIV  249  ff.  For  other  works  on  economy,  see  H.  Civ., 
p.   469  f. 

II.  Colonization. —  Bury,  ch.  ii;  Holm,  I,  ch.  xxi;  Abbott,  I,  ch.  xi;  Cur- 
tius,  bk.  II,  ch.  iii;  Grote,  III,  chs.  xxii,  xxiii;  IV,  chs.  xxvi,  xxvii;  Freeman, 
E.  A.,  History  of  Sicily,  1  (entire)  ;  Whibley,  Companion,  513-17;  Botsford  and 
Sihler,  Hellenic  Civilization,  ch.  iii;  Hogarth,  D.  G.,  and  others,  "Naukratis," 
JHS.,  XXV,  105-36;  Minns,  E.  H.,  Scythians  and  Greeks  (Cambridge  Univer- 
sity Press,  1913),  especially  chs.  x-xiii;  Greenidge,  Greek  Const.  Hist.,  ch.  iii; 
Phillipson,  C,  International  Law  and  Custom  of  Greece  and  Rome,  II,  ch.  xix; 
Cunningham,  IFwierw  Civilization  in  its  Economic  Aspects,  II,  ch.  i;  Beloch, 
Griech.  Gesch.,  I,  1,  229-64;  Holm,  A.,  Geschichte  Siziliens,  I,  108-44;  Pais  E., 
Storia  della  Sicilia  e  della  Magna  Grecia  (Torino  1894)  ;  Ancient  Italy 
(Chicago:  University  Press  1908);  Raoul-Rochette,  D.,  Histoire  critique  de 
I'etahlissement  des  colonies  grecques,  4  vols.  (Paris,  1815);  Svvoboda,  H., 
Griech.  Staatsaltertiimer  (1913)'  184-207;  Gwynn,  A.,  "The  Character  of  Greek 
Colonisation  "  in  JHS.,  XXXVIII,  88-123  ;  Rostovtzeff,  M.,  The  Iranians  and 
the  Greeks  in  S.  Russia  (Oxford,  1922). 


CHAPTER  V 

EVOLUTION  OF  THE  CITY-STATE 
AMPHICTYONIES  AND  LEAGUES 

Economic  and  political  transition  from  Minoan  to  Hellenic 
times.  Limiting  itself  narrowly  to  islands  and  coasts,  the  Minoan 
civilization  owed  its  evolution  to  the  interplay  of  commercial  and 
industrial  cities.  Its  decay  consisted  largely  in  the  breaking  down  of 
the  highly  organized  life  of  the  city  and  a  reversion  to  the  simpler 
forms  of  existence  native  to  field  and  mountain.  The  coming  of  the 
northerners,  accustomed  to  nothing  better  than  the  village,  accentu- 
ated this  change.  The  economy  of  the  Middle  Age  accordingly  was 
one  of  hunting,  grazing,  and  incipient  agriculture.  The  emergence 
of  historical  Greece,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  obscurity  and  de- 
pression of  that  period  consisted  essentially  in  the  revival  of  city 
civilization,  based  partly  on  the  old  seats  of  Minoan  life  and  partly 
on  newer  foundations.  It  has  already  been  noted  that  the  area  of 
the  Minoan  culture  —  mainly  the  Aegean  islands  and  coasts  —  now 
becoming  the  home  of  brilliant  cities  constituted  the  very  heart  of  the 
Hellenic  world. 

The  ethnos  (e^vo?).  The  interior  and  northwest  of  the  peninsula, 
keeping  in  the  background  of  culture,  retained  the  more  primitive 
form  of  the  country  state.  This  institution  is  designated  as  an 
ethnos  —  essentially  a  community  resting  on  the  basis  of  blood  and 
negatively  described  as  wanting  the  city  organization.  Such  a  peo- 
ple occupied  a  definite  territory  usually  limited  by  natural  boundaries,' 
as  mountain  chains  or  seas,  and  was  distinguished  from  other  ethne 
by  dialect  and  customs.  Examples  are  the  Aetolians,  Acarnanians, 
Locrians,  and  Arcadians.  A  large  ethnos,  like  the  Aetolian,  com- 
prised several  sub-ethne  which  we  may  venture  to  call  tribes.  The 
latter  were  divided  into  smaller  groups,  the  subdivision  continuing  till 
we  reach  the  phratry  (brotherhood)  and  its  component  families.  The 
members  of  a  phratry  as  kinsmen  stood  side  by  side  on  the  field  of 
battle,  and  in  time  of  peace  protected  the  lives  of  the  brethren,  or 
wreaked  vengeance  for  their  slain.     Each  group  from  phratry  up- 

69 


70  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ward,  based  on  real  or  pretended  kinship,  had  its  social  institutions, 
government,  and  gods;  but  of  these  matters  the  ancient  historians  give 
us  mere  hints. ^ 

The  village  (km/xt]).  The  canton  (ovaTrjixa).  The  city-state, 
polls  (ttoAis).  The  people  lived  in  small,  widely  separated  villages^ 
most  of  them  unwalled.  Though  the  village  naturally  contained  a 
nucleus  of  kinsfolk,  it  was  fundamentally  territorial,  comprising  a 
mixed  population,  and  served  accordingly  as  the  first  step  in  the 
transition  from  tribal  to  political  society.  Neighboring  villages  with 
little  respect  for  the  ties  of  kin,  ioined  for  mutual  protection  in  a 
canton,  which  usually  centred  in  a  fortified  hilltop.  The  village 
chief  —  demiurgos,  "  public  worker  " —  represented  his  community  in 
the  cantonal  diet.  Several  such  Arcadian  cantons  continued  down 
into  historical  time.  Under  conditions  favorable  to  the  advancement 
of  civilization,  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  and  to  political  de- 
velopment, the  cantonal  centre  became  a  city  —  polls.  Throughout  the 
historical  period  we  constantly  observe  the  formation  of  cities  from 
villages,  and  cannot  doubt  that  in  prehistoric  Greece  the  process  was 
similar.  Although  the  city  thus  developed  on  the  basis  of  neighbor- 
hood rather  than  of  blood,  it  organized  itself  on  the  ethnic  pattern  in 
tribes  (or  their  equivalents)  and  phratries,  and  assumed  for  its  citizens 
a  kinship  which  was  fictitious.  The  new  city  was  a  sovereign  state, 
whose  organization  and  government  sufficed  for  her  entire  territory. 
A  community  of  this  kind  is  described  as  a  city-state  in  contrast  with 
the  more  primitive  ethnic  community  and  with  the  territorial  state  of 
modern  times.  At  the  opening  of  the  period  now  under  consideration 
there  were  in  Hellas,  in  addition  to  many  ethne,  a  countless  number 
of  these  states  ranging  from  a  few  square  miles  to  a  few  hundred 
square  miles  in  area.^ 

Monarchy.  Whether  of  ethnos  or  polls  the  government  was  orig- 
inally vested  in  king,  council,  and  7)opular  assembly.  Though  es- 
sentially like  that  described  by  Homer,  Minoan  survivals  in  many 
places  must  have  modified  it  in  the  direction  of  greater  definiteness 
and  complexity.^  Its  activity,  however,  was  limited  to  defence  against 
foreign  enemies  and  domestic  rebellion,  maintenance  of  the  gods' 
good  will,  and  the  arbitration  of  private  disputes.     The  defence  of 

1  Ethnos  and  its  divisions;  Tliuc.  iii.  94,  96,  101.     Tribes  and  phratries;  //,   ii.  362  f. 

2  Village;  Thuc.  i.  2,  5;  iii.  94.    Canton,  "  union  of  townships."  avaTTnua.  or  ffvfreyeia 
bvuLwf,   Strabo  viii.   X   2.     City-state;    Arist.    Po'it.   i.    2.   8.   1252   b. 

•"!  P.   S3.     The  earliest  known  government  of  Athens  and  of  Sparta,   for  example,   though 
essentially  like  the  Homeric,    is  more  definite  and  more   complex. 


CITY-STATE  AMPHICTYONIES  AND  LEAGUES         71 

life  itself,  as  has  been  intimated,  belonfred  to  the  families  and  phra- 
tries.  Law  was  in  fact  customary  but  the  general  feelinj^  prevailed 
that  the  king,  who  ruled  by  divine  sanction,  received  his  judgments 
from  Zeus  or  Apollo  or  some  other  deity. 

Transition  to  aristocracy,  beginning  about  750.  In  some  ethne, 
as  in  Epeiros  and  Macedon,  monarchy  j^ersisted  throughout  histor- 
ical times.  The  more  progressive  city-state,  however,  as  the  Ionian, 
began  to  adopt  aristocracies  about  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century. 
The  change  was  gradual.  The  great  nobles  who  formed  the  council 
took  an  ever  increasing  part  in  the  government  till  they  usurped 
complete  control.  Their  means  of  aggrandizement  were  the  degrada-, 
tion  of  the  king  to  a  mere  priest  and  judge,  the  institution  of  new 
offices  in  addition  to  the  kingship,  the  reduction  of  the  tenure  of  all 
offices  to  a  single  year,  and  the  appointment  and  supervision  of  offi- 
cials, rendering  them  responsible  to  the  council  for  their  adminis- 
tration. In  this  way  the  council  made  itself  supreme,  while  the  of- 
ficers became  its  tools  and  the  assembly  lost  the  little  significance  it 
had  possessed  under  the  monarchy.* 

Law.  The  idea  of  law  underwent  a  corresponding  change.  While  ] 
it  remained  for  a  time  purely  customary  as  before,  the  nobles  gen- 
erally regarded  themselves  not  as  recipients  of  legal  revelations,  but 
as  keepers  of  a  body  of  law  once  divinely  established  and  now  handed 
down  as  a  precious  heritage  from  father  to  son.  The  nobles  made 
use  of  their  legal  monopoly  to  decide  cases  capriciously  or  from 
motives  of  favoritism  or  in  pursuit  of  bribes.  "  Persuaded  by  their 
love  of  money,"  exclaims  Solon  of  Athens,  "  the  nobles  desire  reck- 
lessly to  destroy  the  great  city.  As  to  the  people,  the  mind  of  their 
magistrates  is  dishonest  —  magistrates  who  are  doomed  to  suffer 
many  ills  because  of  their  monstrous  violence.  .  .  .  They  grow 
wealthy  in  obedience  to  unjust  deeds."  ^ 

Codifications  of  the  law:  Zaleucus.  These  evils,  it  was  doubt- 
less thought,  could  be  partially  remedied  by  the  codification  of  legal 
usages.  The  state  already  possessed  some  written  documents,  includ- 
ing lists  of  magistrates  and  treaties,  and  it  was  but  natural  that 
writing  should  now  be  extended  to  the  preservation  of  laws.  The 
earliest  European  code  known  to  history  was  produced  at  Locri,  Italy.  ' 
The  story  is  told  that  on  consulting  the  oracle  in  a  time  of  civil  con- 

4  Transition;   Arist.  Polit.  iii.  15.  11  f.,   1286  b;  iv.  7.  2-5,  1293  b;  v.   10.  38,   1313  a. 

5  Botsford,    Source-Book,    125    f.     (Solon    4).     Misuse    of    the    law    in    Boeotia;    Hesiod, 
Works,  248  ff. 


72  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

fusion  the  Locrians  were  directed  to  a  slave  shepherd  named  Zaleucus. 
Set  free  and  established  as  legislator,  he  drew  up  a  code  of  laws, 
which  he  explained  were  given  him  by  Athena  in  dreams.  He  care- 
fully regulated  the  lives  of  the  citizens  and  imposed  the  stigma  of  a 
depraved  character  on  women  and  men  who  indulged  in  an  excess 
of  liberty  or  luxury  of  dress  or  ornament.  He  placed  property  and 
business  contracts  under  better  control,  and  deprived  the  judge  of  the 
power  to  give  arbitrary  decisions.  Ordinances  concerning  personal 
injuries  were  severe,  requiring  "  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a 
tooth."  In  a  case  of  appeal,  we  are  informed,  judge  and  appellant 
had  each  to  appear  with  his  neck  in  a  noose,  and  the  one  who  failed 
to  sustain  his  cause  was  executed  on  the  spot.  In  like  manner  the 
proposer  of  a  new  law  was  required  to  advocate  it  with  a  noose  about 
his  neck.  The  result  was  that  the  Locrians  became  famous  for  con- 
servatism, military  spirit,  hospitality,  and  sound  morals.  "  There 
(at  Locri),"  says  Pindar,  "do  ye,  O  Muses,  join  in  the  song  of 
triumph.  I  pledge  my  word  that  to  no  stranger-banishing  folk  ye 
shall  come,  nor  unacquainted  with  things  noble,  but  of  the  highest 
in  the  arts  and  valiant  with  the  spear."  "  With  the  Muses  setting 
myself  thereunto  fervently,  have  I  embraced  the  Locrians'  famous 
race,  and  have  sprinkled  my  honey  over  a  city  of  goodly  men."  The 
laws  of  Zaleucus  will  suffice  as  an  illustration  of  early  codes;  those 
of  Athens  will  be  considered  in  another  place.*^ 

From  aristocracy  to  tyranny.  In  Thessaly  the  aristocrats,  who 
had  wrested  the  supreme  power  from  the  king,  long  retained  their 
supremacy.  Elsewhere  they  were  usually  too  weak  to  endure  more 
than  a  century  or  thereabout.  Often  the  aristocracy  was  overthrown 
by  a  tyrant  —  usurper,  unconstitutional  ruler.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
among  the  Greek  states  of  the  seventh  century  Lacedaemon  alone,  so 
far  as  we  know,  possessed  a  standing  army  sufficient  for  maintaining 
domestic  peace  and  protecting  life  and  property.  The  rest  were 
filled  with  civil  strife.  This  condition  made  the  usurpation  of  gov- 
ernment easy.  Sometimes  a  magistrate  refused  to  lay  down  his  office 
on  its  expiration,  but  maintained  himself  by  force.  In  this  way 
he  became  a  tyrant.  Or  the  tyrant  might  be  an  umpire,  whom  war- 
ring  factions  chose  to  arbitrate  between  them,   and  who  took   ad- 

6  Arist.  Frag.  548  (Rose);  Diod.  xii.  20  f . ;  Polyb.  xii.  16;  Strabo  vi.  1.  8;  Dem. 
Timoc.  139-41 ;  (Scymnos)  314  f.  The  existence  of  Zaleucus  was  doubted  even  by  the 
ancients;  Timaeus  in  FHG.  I.  p.  209.  69.  The  code,  however,  implies  the  codifier,  whose 
name  and  personality  are  of  minor  importance.  Quotations  from  Pindar,  Ol.  x.  107  ff. ; 
xi.   13  ff. 


CITY-STATE  AMPHICTYONIES  AND  LEAGUES         73 

vantage  of  the  occasion  to  seize  the  government.  More  commonly 
he  was  an  ambitious  politician  who,  failing  in  a  struggle  for  office, 
appealed  to  the  people,  promising  them  economic  or  political  ad- 
vantage in  return  for  their  support.  A  military  reputation,  added 
to  smoothness  of  speech,  increased  his  chances  for  success.  With  the 
help  of  the  commons,  he  would  overthrow  his  fellow  aristocrats  and 
make  himself  master.''' 

Tyranny  at  Corinth,  657-586  (conventional,  though  uncer- 
tain, dates).  Among  the  earliest  tyrannies  was  that  of  the  Cypsel- 
idae  at  Corinth.  Cypselus,  the  founder,  overthrew  the  ruling 
Bacchiadae,  to  whom  he  was  related  on  his  mother's  side.  During 
his  reign  of  thirty  years,  "  he  drove  many  Corinthians  into  exile, 
many  he  deprived  of  their  wealth,  and  very  many  more  of  their 
lives."  These  words  of  Herodotus  should  apply  only  to  his  treat- 
ment of  the  nobles.  By  the  people  he  was  so  beloved  throughout  his 
reign  as  to  require  no  personal  guard.  The  Bacchiad  policy  of  col- 
onization and  patronage  of  the  useful  and  fine  arts  he  inherited,  and 
handed  down  to  his  son  and  successor,  Periander.® 

Periander.  Of  the  latter  Herodotus  has  still  more  discreditable 
stories  to  tell.  Elsewhere,  however,  we  learn  that  he  was  an  able 
commander  in  war  and  a  wise  and  moderate  ruler.  By  checking  the 
importation  of  slaves,  he  assured  to  skilled  workmen  a  better  social 
standing  than  this  class  enjoyed  anywhere  else  in  Hellas.  To  encour- 
age agriculture  as  well  as  political  quiet,  he  forbade  unoccupied  per- 
sons to  live  within  the  city.  A  council  which  he  established  was 
charged  with  the  duty  of  checking  the  growth  of  luxury  and  of 
seeing  that  no  one  spent  more  than  his  income  warranted.  As  mar- 
ket and  harbor  customs  sufficed  for  the  needs  of  government,  the  citi- 
zens were  relieved  of  direct  taxes.  These  statesmanlike  measures 
help  account  for  his  long  reign  of  forty-four  years. ^  The  tyranny  sur- 
vived him  but  three  years,  when  it  was  overthrown  by  a  band  of  con- 
spirators. 

Tyranny  at  Sicyon,  670-560  (conventional,  though  uncertain, 
dates).  Next  in  brilliance  among  the  early  Hellenic  tyrants  stood 
the  Orthagoridae  of  Sicyon.  This  city  lay  northwest  of  Corinth  in 
the  narrow  but  fertile  valley  of  the  Aesopus.     The  little  district  was 

7  Arist.  PoHt.  V.  5.  6-11,  1305  a;  8.  7,   1308  a;   10.  4-6,  1310  b. 

8Hdt.  V.  92;  Nicolaus  of  Damascus,  in  FHG.  HI.  p.  391,  58;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  12.  1-4, 
1315  b. 

9Hdt.  V.  92;  Nicolaus,  op.  cit.  p.  393.  59  f . ;  Pseud.  Heracleides,  in  FHG.  II.  p.  212.  V; 
Arist.  Polit.  iii.  13.   16-8,  1284  a;  v.   10.   13,  1311  a;   11.  4,  1313  a;   12.  3,  1315  b. 


74  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

as  famous  for  its  garden  and  orchard  products  as  for  bronze  wares 
and  potteries.^*^  In  addition  to  landlords  and  their  serfs  there  had 
developed  a  considerable  class  of  artisans  and  traders.  Whereas 
usually  the  tyrant  was  of  noble  birth,  Orthagoras,  who  usurped  the 
government  of  Sicyon,  was  from  a  lower  social  class.^^ 

Cleisthenes,  early  sixth  century.  Of  his  descendants  it  was 
Cleisthenes  who  made  his  city  one  of  the  most  brilliant  in  Hellas. 
His  first  effort  was  to  free  Sicyon  from  the  political  control  which 
Argos  hitherto  had  exercised  over  it.  This  object  he  accomplished  in 
a  successful  war  with  the  dominant  power.  Moreover  he  forbade 
the  rhapsodists  to  chant  in  Sicyon  their  epics,  which  celebrated  the 
glories  of  Argos.  To  free  his  countrymen  from  religious  dependence 
r>n  their  former  master,  he  determined  to  expel  from  his  city  the 
cult  of  Adrastus,  an  Argive  hero.  With  this  end  in  view  he  built  a 
shrine  to  the  Theban  hero  Melanippus,  who  in  story  had  figured  as 
a  deadly  enemy  of  Adrastus.  To  the  newly  adopted  hero  he  trans- 
ferred all  the  revenues  and  festivals  of  the  old,  whereupon  the  priests 
of  Adrastus  beat  a  hasty  retreat  from  Sicyon.  This  anecdote  illus- 
trates the  singular  importance  of  hero  cults  among  the  early  Greeks. 
The  three  Doric  tribes,  to  which  the  landowners  belonged,  still  re- 
minded Sicyon  of  its  close  connection  with  Argos,  till  Cleisthenes 
abolished  their  names,  contemptuously  substituting  Piglings,  Don- 
keys, and  Porkers,  whereas  his  own  tribe  of  Shoremen,  evidently 
comprising  artisans  and  traders,  he  dignified  by  the  name  of  Ruling 
Class  (Archelai').  This  measure  hints  at  a  policy  which  trans- 
formed Sicyon  from  an  agricultural  to  an  industrial  and  commercial 
state.^2 

The  wooing  of  Agariste.  Another  picture  of  this  illustrious 
tyrant,  drawn  by  Herodotus,  shows  him  a  lordly  generous  host.  On 
his  invitation  came  young  men  of  noblest  birth  from  every  part  of 
Hellas  to  woo  his  daughter  Agariste;  and  for  a  whole  year  he  enter- 
tained them,  while  he  tested  their  athletic  and  musical  training,  their 
social  and  table  manners,  their  breeding  and  temper.  He  looked 
with  favor  on  Hippocleides  of  Athens,  till  the  latter  one  evening  dis- 
played a  marvellous  skill  in  dancing;  after  representing  Laconian 
figures,  and  then  Attic,  he  closed  with  a  performance  on  the  table, 
head    downward,    his    feet    gesticulating    in    air.     "  Ah,    son    of 

lODiod.  XX.   102;   Strabo  viii.  6.   25;   Pliny,  N.  H.  xxxvi.  9. 

11  Arist.  Polit.  v.   12.   1,   1,M5  b;   Diod.   viii.  2A. 

i2Hdt.  V.  67  f. ;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  12.  1,  1315  b;  Nicolaus  in  FHG.  III.  p.  394.  61. 


CITY-STATE  AMPHICTYONIES  AND  LEAGUES        75 

Teisander,"  exclaimed  the  sovereign,  "  thou  hast  danced  away  thy 
wedding";    the   other   answered,    "  Hippocleides   cares   not,"    which 
became  a  proverb  at  Athens.     In  a  polite  address  Cleisthenes  then 
expressed  his  regret  at  not  having  a  daughter  to  bestow  on  every  one 
of  his  highly  accomplished  guests;  and  promising  them  a  silver  talent 
each  as  a  trifling  substitute,  he  concluded:     "  To  the  son  of  Alcmaeon, 
Megacles,  I  offer  my  daughter  Agariste  in  marriage  according  to  the 
laws  of  the  Athenians."     The  offer  was  accepted  and  the  two  who 
were  thus  united  became  the  parents  of  the  famous  Athenian  law- 
giver Cleisthenes,  and  the  great-grandparents  of  the  still  more  famous 
Pericles.     This  story  sheds  a  pleasant  light  on  the  social  relations 
and  intermarriage  of  the  great  nobles  of  Greece,  on  the  genial  ele- 
gance of  the  tyrant,  and  on  his  wide  interstate  connections.^^     The 
death  of  Cleisthenes  about  570  closed  the  century-long  rule  of  his 
dynasty.     Evidently  other  tyrants  succeeded,  and  it  was  not  till  near 
the  end  of  the  sixth  century  (about  510)   that  Sicyon  shook  off  the 
yoke.     In  the  case  of  both  Corinth  and  Sicyon  the  revolution  was 
accomplished   by   a    band   of   noble   conspirators    supported    by   the 
Lacedaemonians.     Both  cities  adopted  moderate  oligarchy  and  both 
entered  the  Peloponnesian  League.^* 

General  character  of  the  tyranny.  These  examples  sufficiently 
illustrate  for  the  present  purpose  the  character  of  the  earlier  tyranny. 
Whatever  the  tyrant's  origin,  his  authority  was  generally  exercised 
in  the  interest  of  peace,  material  prosperity  and  progress  in  civiliza- 
tion. Putting  an  end  alike  to  the  factional  strife  of  nobles  and  the 
sectional  conilicts  of  tribes,  he  reduced  his  people  to  harmony  and 
established  domestic  peace.  No  force  in  the  Hellenic  world  of  the 
time  contributed  so  much  to  cultural  progress.  The  tyrant's  patron- 
age attracted  poets,  painters,  sculptors,  and  architects,  who  formed 
in  his  court  a  brilliant  and  versatile  society.  Everywhere  excepting  in 
Sicyon  rhapsodists  were  engaged  to  recite  the  Homeric  poems  at  pop- 
ular gatherings;  and  everywhere  at  festivals  in  honor  of  the  new  god 
Dionysus,  song  and  recitation  —  the  germ  of  the  drama  —  celebrated 
the  sufferings  and  joys  he  experienced  among  mankind.  By  thus 
fostering  literary  interest  among  the  people  and  by  attaching  them  to 
newer  cults  he  freed  them  in  a  degree  from  the  priestly  influence  of 
the  old  nobility  and  educated  them  for  self-government. 

13  Hdt.   vi.   126-31. 

liRylarid  Papyri,  I.  p.  31;   Nicolaus,   in  FHG.   III.   p.  393.   60.   9;   p.  395.   61.   8;   Hdt.   v. 
92;  Plut.  Malig.  Herod.  21,  859  e;  Diog.  Laert.  i.  68. 


76  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Redress  of  legal  and  political  wrongs.  The  tyrant's  promise 
to  the  commons  he  fulfilled  by  putting  an  end  to  aristocratic  oppres- 
sion, to  the  exactions  of  landlords,  and  to  the  unjust  sentences  of 
magistrates.  Generally  he  enforced  the  existing  laws  and  constitu- 
tion, though  he  was  far  from  permitting  the  people  to  enjoy  any  real 
political  power.  The  levelling  of  social  classes,  the  enforcement  of 
law  by  mercenary  aid,  developing  a  much  needed  civic  discipline, 
together  with  an  enlightened  educational  policy  constituted  an  essen- 
tial and  long-reaching  stride  on  the  way  from  aristocracy  to  democ- 
racy. Necessarily,  however,  as  the  tyrant  concentrated  governmental 
power  in  his  own  hands,  the  political  rights  of  the  citizens  slept,  while 
individuals  of  pronounced  ambition  were  exiled  or  put  to  death.  The 
long  continuance  of  despotism  would  have  crushed  the  genius  of  the 
Greeks  and  reduced  them  to  the  dead  level  of  Asiatics.  Fortunately 
tyrannies  were  short-lived.  Whereas  the  usurper  himself  was  a 
statesman,  his  sons  and  even  more  his  grandsons,  corrupted  by  wealth 
and  unlimited  power,  so  degenerated  as  to  give  the  word  tyrant  the 
meaning  which  it  has  retained  to  the  present  time.  Almost  inevitably, 
however,  the  tyranny  was  succeeded  either  by  a  democracy  or  by  an 
oligarchy  more  liberally  constituted  than  the  earlier  aristocracy. 

Oligarchy.  Literally  an  oligarchy  is  a  "  rule  of  the  few  ";  accord- 
ing to  Aristotle  ^^  the  few  who  based  their  right  upon  wealth.  The 
narrowest  and  most  oppressive  form  arose  where  a  clique  of  wealthy 
men  seized  the  government  and  exploited  the  state  in  their  own  inter- 
est. It  is  characterized  by  Aristotle  '^^  as  dynastic,  a  hydra-headed 
tyranny,  far  more  heartless  than  the  despotism  of  an  individual. 
Broader  and  more  endurable  was  the  knightly  oligarchy,  in  which 
participation  in  the  government  depended  upon  economic  ability  to 
furnish  all  necessary  equipments  for  service  on  horseback. ^'^  The 
knight  provided  from  his  own  estate  either  a  single  horse  or  two 
horses  —  one  for  himself,  the  other  for  his  squire.  Chalcis  and 
Eretria  are  examples.  This  form  of  oligarchy,  in  which  political 
privileges  are  graded  on  the  basis  of  property,  is  precisely  described 
as  a  timocracy.^^ 

Timocracy  of  the  heavy  infantry.  A  more  popular  form  was 
so  broad  as  to  admit  to  active  citizenship  all  who  could  equip  them- 

15  Polit.  iii.  7.  5;  8.  6  f.,  1279  b. 

IG  Polit.  iv.  6.  10  f.,  1293  a;  cf.  iv.  5.  1-3,  1292  a. 

17  Arist.  Polit.  iv.  3.  3,   1290  a;   13.  10,   1297  b. 

3.8  Arist.  Ethics,  viii.  12,  1160;  Rhetoric,  i.  8,  1365. 


CITY-STATE  AMPHICTYONIES  AND  LEAGUES        77 

selves  with  a  panoply  for  war.  The  latter  developed  from  the  former 
mainly  through  the  growth  of  states  in  population  and  wealth.  "  The 
earliest  government  which  existed  among  the  Hellenes  after  the  over- 
throw of  the  kingly  power,  grew  up  from  the  warrior  class,  and  was 
originally  taken  from  the  knights  (for  strength  and  superiority  in  war 
at  that  time  depended  on  cavalry) ;  indeed  without  discipline  infantry 
are  useless,  and  in  ancient  times  there  was  no  military  knowledge  or 
tactics,  and  therefore  the  strength  of  armies  lay  in  their  cavalry.  But 
when  cities  increased  and  the  heavy-armed  grew  in  strength,  more 
had  a  share  in  the  government."  ^'"^  The  best-known  example  is  that 
of  Athens  immediately  before  Solon.  A  timocracy  of  the  heavy  in- 
fantry may  expand,  either  directly  or  through  the  tyranny,  to  democ- 
racy. The  latter  kind  of  government  will  be  treated  in  connection 
with  the  reforms  of  Cleisthenes  at  Athens. 

Political  versatility  of  the  Hellenes.  By  means  of  typical 
instances  we  have  now  traced  the  main  lines  of  development  from 
monarchy  to  the  beginning  of  democracy.  For  appreciating  the 
genius  of  the  Greeks,  however,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  in  the 
creation  of  forms  of  government  they  showed  the  same  boundless 
versatility  as  in  the  fields  of  literature,  art,  and  philosophy.  Among 
their  most  precious  contributions  to  civilization  is  the  republican  gov- 
ernment, which  they  devised  in  endless  variety,  and  which  assured 
to  the  citizens  a  varying  degree  of  liberty  and  self-government. 

In  this  atmosphere  of  freedom  they  created  political  science  as 
represented  by  the  works  of  Plato  and  Aristotle.  We  must  not  con- 
demn these  efforts  because  in  some  or  all  respects  they  fall  short  of 
the  actualities  or  ideals  of  today;  but  in  all  fairness  we  must  regard 
the  Greeks  as  pioneers,  whose  political  strivings,  necessarily  tentative, 
have  furnished  to  after  ages  suggestions  and  inspirations  for  a  more 
perfectly  balanced  democracy. 

Combinations  of  states.  The  motive  which  first  led  neighboring 
states,  whether  ethne  or  cities,  to  combine  in  leagues  lies  far  anterior 
to  recorded  history.  It  might  have  been  a  border  market,  the  need 
of  allies,  the  desire  for  frontier  security,  or  a  nascent  consciousness 
of  kindred  blood.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  practical  impetus  to 
friendly  intercourse,  such  neighboring  states  chose  the  sanctuary  of  a 
deity  conveniently  situated,  at  which  to  hold  a  periodical  festival 
for  worship,  often,  too,  a  fair  for  the  interchange  of  goods.     A  union 

19  Arist.   Polit.   iv.   13,   10,   1297   b. 


78  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

of  neighbors  ostensibly  for  a  religious  object,  but  sometimes  serving 
more  practical  ends,  was  termed  an  amphictyony.  That  of  Delos, 
centering  in  the  shrine  of  Apollo  on  that  island,  reached  the  height 
of  its  splendor  probably  early  in  the  seventh  century.  The  Homeric 
Hymn  to  the  Delian  Apollo,  composed  at  that  time,  celebrates  the 
gathering  of  the  lonians  with  their  wives  and  children  to  worship  this 
god  with  music,  dancing,  and  gymnastic  exercises,  and  to  trade. -"^ 
From  an  original  union  of  insular  neighbors  it  had  come  to  include 
all  the  lonians.  Without  ever  assuming  a  political  character,  it 
eventually  declined.  Another  amphictyony  comprised  twelve  ethne  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Thermopylae.  Its  earliest  seat  of  worship  was 
the  shrine  of  Demeter  at  Anthela,  near  that  pass;  but  in  time  it 
acquired  a  second  and  more  important  centre  in  the  temple  of  Apollo 
at  Delphi;  hence  it  came  to  be  known  as  the  Delphic  amphictyony. 
The  object  of  the  league  was  the  protection  of  the  shrines,  especially 
of  the  temple  and  oracle  of  Apollo.  The  government  lay  in  the  hands 
of  an  amphictyonic  council,  comprising  forty-eight  "  speakers,"  four 
from  each  tribe,  and  twelve  recorders.  The  speakers  alone  proposed 
and  debated  measures;  the  recorders  alone  voted.  A  resolution 
adopted  by  this  council  in  the  immemorial  past  imposed  an  oath  upon 
the  members  of  the  league  not  to  destroy  an  amphictyonic  city  or  to  cut 
it  off  from  running  water  in  war  or  peace.  Here  was  one  of  the 
earliest  attempts  to  mitigate  the  primitive  rigors  of  war.  Many  other 
decrees  of  the  council  are  known  to  us,  including  one  which  forbade 
the  Greeks  to  levy  tolls  on  pilgrims  to  the  shrine,  and  another  requir- 
ing the  states  of  the  league  to  keep  in  repair  their  own  roads  leading 
to  Delphi. '  Against  a  state  which  trespassed  upon  any  rights  of  the 
god  it  had  the  power  to  declare  a  "  sacred  war."  Although  the  coun- 
cil sometimes  championed  the  cause  of  Hellas,  as  could  any  associa- 
tion or  individual,  it  never  acquired  a  recognized  authority  over  all 
the  Greeks;  and  notwithstanding  its  occasional  participation  in  polit- 
ical affairs,  it  remained  essentially  a  religious  convocation.^^ 

Hegemony,  A  union  religious  at  basis  tended  to  become  political, 
especially  when  it  contained  a  state  of  superior  power  and  secular 
ambition.  For  example,  the  Boeotian  amphictyony,  whose  deities 
were  Poseidon  and  Athena,  was  converted  into  a  federal  union  by 

20  Homeric  Byvm  to  the  Delian  Apollo,  141-64;  Thuc.  iii.   104. 

21  Aesch.  Parap.  115  f. ;  Ctes.  107;  Strabo  ix.  3.  4;  Paus.  x.  8,  2;  IG.  11.  545.     Organiza- 
tion of  the  council;  Botsford,  "Amphictyony,"  in  Eycycl.  Brit.  11th  ed.  with  references. 


X 

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80  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Thebes.--  Its  constitution,  which  developed  toward  the  end  of  the 
fifth  century,  grouped  the  states  of  the  league  in  eleven  units  roughly 
equal  in  population.  These  units  were  equally  represented  in  the 
federal  magistracy,  council,  and  court,  and  had  equal  military  and 
financial  burdens.  It  provided  further  for  a  referendum  of  important 
matters  to  the  states,  and  seems  to  have  admitted  of  an  initiative 
from  the  states.  Theoretically  the  arrangement  was  most  admir- 
able; but  in  fact  the  Thebans,  who  constituted  four  of  the  eleven  units 
of  representation,  dominated  the  federal  policy.^^ 

These  examples  will  suffice  for  illustrating  the  amphictyony  and 
the  earlier  experimentation  with  political  unions  of  states.  Other 
confederations  will  be  mentioned  in  the  course  of  this  narrative.  The 
brilliancy  of  the  Greek  mind  in  devising  systems  of  combination, 
however,  was  for  a  long  time  more  than  offset  by  the  excessive  indi- 
vidualism of  the  small  republics,  to  whom  sovereign  independence 
was  the  breath  of  life. 

22  11.  ii.  506;  Strabo  ix.  2.  29,  33;  Paus.  ix.  34.   1. 

23  O*.  Hell.  xL  3;    Botsford,  Pol.  Sci.   Quart.   XXV,  284  ff.   with  references. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

I.  Development  of  Forms  of  Government. —  Abbott,  II,  ch.  i;  Holm,  I, 
ch.  XX ;   Greenidge,   Greek  Const.  Hist.,  ch.  ii;   Whibley,  Companion,  429-441; 

Fowler,  City-State  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  chs.  i-vi ;  Pohlmann,  R.  von, 
Griech.  Gesch.,  56-95 ;  Swoboda,  Griech.  Staatsaltertiimer,  in  Hermann,  Lehrb. 
d.  griech.  Antiquitdten,  III  (113,  21-183;  Francotte,  H.,  Melanges  de  droit 
public  grec,  43-69   (monarchy  and  tyranny). 

II.  Leagues. —  General:  Francotte,  H.,  "Formation  des  villes,  des  etats, 
des  confederations  et  des  liques  dans  la  Grece  ancienne,"  Bull,  de  I'Acad.  roy.  de 
Belgique,  1901,  pp.  949-1012;  Howard,  G.  E.,  Comparative  Federal  Institutions, 
an  Analytical  Reference  Syllabus  (University  of  Nebraska,  1907),  with  refer- 
ences. Boeotian  league:  Botsford,  G.  W.,  "Constitution  and  Politics  of  the 
Boeotian  League,"  Pol.  Sci.  Quart.,  XXV  (1910),  271-96;  Swoboda,  Griech. 
Staatsaltertiimer,  249-94.  Amphictyony:  Botsford,  "Amphictyony,"  Encycl. 
Brit.,  11th  ed. ;  Bourguet,  E.,  L' Administration  financiere  du  sanctuaire  pythique 
au  IV  siecle  avant  J.-C.  (Paris,  1905);  Sokoloff,  T.,  "Die  delphische 
Amphiktione,"  Klio,  VH  (1907),  52-72;  Walek,  T.  B.,  Die  delphische  Amphik- 
tione  in  der  Zeit  der  dtolischen  Herrschaft  (Berlin,  1911). 


MENELAON 


CHAPTER  VI 


CRETE,  LACEDAEMON,  AND  THE  PELOPONNESIAN 

LEAGUE 

I.  Crete 

City-States  and  their  federation.  Of  the  hundred  Cretan  cities 
existing  in  the  Middle  Age,  at  least  fifty  survived  to  historical  time, 
or  were  replaced  by  newer  foundations,  and  are  known  by  name.  They 
joined  in  a  league  to  resist  invasion,  and  established  a  federal  court 
for  the  settlement  of  their  disputes.  Notwithstanding  these  institu- 
tions the  city-states  often  fought  with  one  another.  The  most  impor- 
tant were  Cnossus,  Gortyn,  and  Cydonia,  which  when  combined  were 
able  to  control  the  policy  of  the  rest.^ 

Social  classes.  Because  of  the  relatively  small  number  of  Hel- 
lenic immigrants  into  Crete  Minoan  institutions,  as  well  as  Minoan 
art,  survived  to  historical  time  with  less  modification  than  elsewhere.^ 
"  The  Lyctians,"  says  Aristotle,  "  are  a  colony  of  the  Lacedaemonians, 

1  Among  the  most  useful  sources  are  the  law  code  of  Gortyn,  translated  with  commentary 
in  H.  Civ.  No.  76,  and  other  epigraphic  documents,  especially  those  contained  in  SGD.  III. 
2.  p.  227-423.  Literary  sources  are  Arist.  Polit.  ii,  10,  1271  b.  f.  et  pass.;  Ephorus,  in 
Strabo  x.  3  f.  and  scattered  references,  sor.ae  of  which  will  be  found  in  the  footnotes;  cf. 
also  H.  Civ.  nos.  S-8. 

Hundred  cities;  II.  ii.  649;  cf.  Od.  xix.   174  (ninety).    Federation;   Plut.  Frat.  amor. 

2  P.  3i. 

81 


/ 


82  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  the  colonists  when  they  came  to  Crete,  adopted  the  laws  which 
they  found  existing  among  the  inhabitants,"  ^  Ephorus,*  too,  holds 
the  opinion  that  the  institutions  which  we  are  accustomed  to  describe 
as  peculiarly  Dorian  existed  in  the  native  cities  of  Crete  before  the 
Dorian  immigration.  Society  in  Lyctus  and  elsewhere  was  organized 
in  stereotyped  classes  such  as  we  expect  to  find  in  any  old,  stagnant 
civilization.  Most  bought  slaves  were  in  the  cities  employed  in  do- 
mestic service.  Higher  in  rank  were  the  serfs,  some  public,  others 
private.  "  These  slaves  (serfs)  have  some  regularly  recurring  festi- 
vals in  Cydonia,  during  which  no  freemen  enter  the  city;  but  the 
slaves  are  masters  of  everything,  and  have  the  right  even  to  flog  the 
freemen."  •'"'  Their  family  and  business  rights  were  extensive  and 
they  were  carefully  protected  by  law.  Among  the  freemen  were 
various  social  grades.  Lowest  were  the  perioeci,  "  dwellers  around," 
the  inhabitants  of  a  city  in  subjection  to  another.  We  know  little 
of  their  condition.  The  citizens  of  a  free  state  were  by  birth  either 
common  or  noble;  all  were  alike  warriors  living  in  the  city  and  differ- 
entiated from  the  farming  class  by  a  law  of  Minos.  The  most  impor- 
tant features  of  their  life  were  their  military  education  and  their 
public  tables." 

Training  of  children  and  youths.  The  children  were  taught  to 
read,  to  sing  the  traditional  songs,  and  to  play  the  double  pipe  and 
lyre,  two  instruments  inherited  from  Minoan  time.  At  an  early 
age  they  were  taken  to  the  public  tables  to  wait  on  their  fathers. 
Clad  in  mean  garments  which  were  rarely  changed,  they  ate  theii 
food  together,  sitting  on  the  ground.  The  boys,  attached  to  each 
table  were  organized  in  a  company  under  a  master.  The  groups 
thus  formed  took  rudimentary  training  for  war  and  fought  sham 
battles.  When  they  reached  the  seventeenth  year,  they  were  organ- 
ized in  troops  each  under  the  leadership  of  a  noble  youth,  whose 
father  supervised  its  training  and  enforced  discipline.  "  On  certain 
appointed  days  troop  encounters  troop,  marching  in  time  to  the  sound 
of  pipe  and  lyre,  as  is  their  custom  in  actual  war.  .  .  .  All  the  mem- 
bers who  have  reached  the  required  age  are  compelled  to  marry. 
They  do  not  bring  their  brides  home  forthwith,  but  wait  till  the  latter 
are  able  to  attend  to  household  matters.     The  dowry  of  a  girl  is  equal 

3  Arist.  Polit.  ii.   10.  2  f.,   1271  b  (cf.  H.  Civ.  no.  5). 

4  In  Strabo  x.  4.   17. 

5  Ephorus,  in  Athen,  vi.  84.     Public  serfs,  mnoitae,  related  to  Minos  (?)   or  possibly  de- 
rived from  dmos  (8u.ws)>  "  conquered."     Private  serfs,  clarotae,  aphamiotae. 

6  Perioeci;  H.  Civ.  no.  5  (Aristotle).    Citizens  of  free  states;  op.  cit.  No.  6  (Aristotle). 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON  83 

to  half  of  her  brother's  portion."  '  Evidently  the  troop  was  the  com- 
pany which  sat  at  one  table.  The  messes  (jf  the  older  men  were 
called  simply  clubs,  evidently  transformed  from  the  troops  of  youth. 

Public  tables.  The  limited  number  of  citizens  in  a  state  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  the  tables  were  under  a  single  roof.  Each  table  was 
in  charge  of  a  woman,  who  with  the  help  of  common  laborers  and 
slaves  prepared  and  served  the  food,  giving  the  choicest  dishes  to 
the  citizens  most  distinguished  for  wisdom  and  prowess.  An  ancient 
authority  informs  us  that  "  the  people  of  Lycti  conduct  their  public 
tables  as  follows :  each  brings  in  a  tenth  of  his  produce  as  well  as  the 
public  revenues  which  the  authorities  of  the  state  distribute  among 
the  several  houses.  Each  slave,  too,  contributes  (monthly?)  an 
Aeginetan  stater  as  poll-tax."  This  arrangement  conduced  to  equal- 
ity, as  state  aid  permitted  the  poorest  citizens  to  eat  at  the  public 
tables.* 

Military  and  religious  aspects  of  the  training.  The  object  of 
their  peculiar  mode  of  life  was  military.  "  That  courage  and  not 
fear  might  predominate,  they  accustomed  themselves  from  childhood 
to  the  use  of  arms  and  to  endure  fatigue.  Accordingly  they  disre- 
garded heat  and  cold,  rugged  and  steep  roads,  blows  received  in 
gymnastic  exercises  and  in  set  battles."  ^  They  practiced  archery; 
and  the  curetes,  young  men  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  Zeus  the 
Divine  Youth,  performed  the  Pyrrhic  war-dance  in  armor,  while  they 
chanted  a  song  to  "  the  Lord  of  all  that  is  wet  and  gleaming,"  pray- 
ing for  full  jars,  fleecy  flocks,  fruitful  fields,  prosperous  sea-borne 
ships  and  goodly  law.^" 

Political  development.  The  original  kingship  changed  to  an 
aristocracy,  in  which  the  chief  magistrates  were  ten  cosmi,  "  keepers 
of  order,"  who  commanded  in  war,  exercised  judicial  and  general 
administrative  functions,  and  enforced  discipline  among  the  citizens. 
They  were  assisted  and  limited  by  a  council  and  an  assembly.  At 
an  early  period  the  laws  were  reduced  to  writing.  A  considerable 
part  of  the  code  of  Gortyn  has  been  preserved  in  an  inscription.^^ 
Gradually  the  government  grew  more  popular  till  in  the  third  cen- 
tury democracy  became  universal. 

7  H.  Civ.  no.  7  (Ephorus).     Troop,  agele. 

SH.  Civ.  no.  7  (Dosiades),  includes  quotation;   Arist.  Polit.  ii.   10.  8,  1272  a.     A  stater  =: 
2  drachmas  =  52  cents. 

9  H.  Civ.  no.   8  (Ephoros). 

10  Loc.   cit.;  p.  69  above. 

11  H.    Civ.   iiO.   76. 


g4  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

II.     Lacedaemon 

Political  unification  of  Laconia.  In  Laconia  conditions  were  in 
some  respects  similar  to  those  of  Crete.  Although  probably  a  larger 
percentage  of  the  Laconians  were  of  northern  descent,  yet  their 
civilization  owed  more  to  the  Minoans  than  to  the  Indo-European 
race.  Unlike  Crete,  Laconia  contained  one  city-state  —  Sparta  — 
which  excelled  all  the  rest  in  military  power.  Advantageously  lo- 
cated near  the  centre  of  the  country,  and  probably  commanding  a 
wider  area  and  larger  population  than  any  other,  well  invigorated  too 
with  northern  blood,  this  city  brought  all  Laconia  under  her  power 
(eighth  century).  Adjacent  communities  she  absorbed,  and  reduced 
the  others  to  subjection  as  perioeci.  The  nearer  result  was  increased 
wealth  and  temporarily  a  richer  culture  for  the  dominant  state,  but 
more  enduringly  the  growth  of  the  strongest  military  power  in 
Hellas." 

Laconian  culture  of  the  seventh  century.  Early  in  the  seventh 
century  the  commercial  relations  of  Sparta  with  the  Asiatic  Greeks 
bore  cultural  fruit.  On  invitation  the  Lesbian  musician  Terpander 
came  with  his  seven-stringed  Cretan  lyre  to  Sparta  to  allay  a  political 
disturbance.  The  Greeks  were  far  more  sensitive  to  music  than  we 
are;  and  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  appreciate  the  moral  effect  of 
hortative  verse  sung  to  a  strange  and  masterful  melody.  Shortly 
afterward  Thaletas  of  Gortyn,  invited  by  the  Spartans  to  visit  their 
city,  brought  with  him  the  choral  song  and  dance.  The  word  chorus 
applied  originally  to  the  dancing-place,  then  to  the  group  of  perform- 
ers, and  finally  to  their  song.  The  Pyrrhic  war-dance  he  is  said  to 
have  invented.  However  that  may  be,  he  introduced  it  into  Sparta. 
In  music  the  Spartans  found  a  powerful  instrument  for  training,  and 
no  state  employed  it  with  equal  success. ^^  Later  in  the  century  we 
find  Alcman  active  at  Sparta.  A  hint  from  an  extant  fragment  has 
led  to  the  view  that  he  was  a  Lydian  from  Sardis.  At  all  events  he 
speaks  the  Doric  tongue  and  identifies  himself  heart  and  soul  with 

12  Assimilation  of  Minoan  and  Indo-European  in  Laconia;  p.  26.  Sources  for  Lacedae- 
monian history;  SGD.  III.  2.  p.  3-226.  For  tlie  seventh  century  Tyrtaeus  and  Alcman, 
though  fragmentary,  are  very  valuable.  The  culture  is  well  represented  by  reports  of  exca- 
vations, BSA.,  beginning  with  XI  (1904-05);  see  also  the  vols,  of  JHS.  beginning  about  the 
same  date.  Incidentally  Herodotus,  as  i.  65;  iv.  147  ff. ;  vi.  51  ff . ;  Xenophon,  Constitution 
of  the  Lacedarnionians ;  Aristotle,  Politics,  ii.  9  et  pass.;  Plutarch,  Lycurgus;  Strabo  viii. 
5.  4-8;  X.  4.  17-19  (mainly  from  Ephorus) ;  Pausanias,  especially  iii;  and  references  widely 
scattered  throughout  ancient  literature.  Most  ancient  authors,  as  Plato,  idealize  Sparta, 
whereas    Aristotle    goes   to    the    opposite    extreme. 

13  Terpander's  coming  (about  675);  Arist.  Frag.  545  (Rose);  Heracleides  Ponticus  in 
FHG.   II.  p.   210.   6.     Thaletas;  U.  Civ.  no.  8  (EphorusJ. 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON  85 

the  natives.  His  poems  open  to  us  a  view  of  Spartan  life  which  we 
find  nowhere  else  —  a  life  of  contentment,  of  peace  and  love  and 
pleasure.  "  From  the  gods  is  vengeance;  but  he  is  happy  who  cheer- 
ily weaves  the  web  of  his  days  unweeping."  He  invites  to  Laconia 
the  goddess  Aphrodite,  "  leaving  her  lovely  Cyprus  and  Paphos  en- 
circled by  waves;"  he  calls  upon  the  Muse  of  sweet  voice,  daughter 
of  Zeus,  to  begin  the  delightful  melody,  adding  charm  to  the  song, 
and  inspiring  the  graceful  dance  of  fair-gowned  girls  with  their 
carven  ivory  necklets.  These  sentiments  of  his,  and  many  more  no  less 
gentle,  were  in  keeping  with  the  Laconia  of  his  age.^* 

"  We  came  to  great  Demeter's  fane,  we  nine, 
All  maidens,  all  in  goodly  raiment  clad: 
In  goodly  raiment  clad,  with  necklets  bright 
Of  carven   ivory  that  shone   like  (snow)." 

First  Messenian  war.  In  a  general  way  we  have  traced  the  his- 
tory of  Laconia  through  the  Middle  Age  to  its  acme  of  cultural  devel- 
opment in  the  seventh  century.  The  conquest  of  this  country  by 
Sparta  was  connected  closely,  as  effect  and  cause,  with  the  growth  in 
that  city  of  a  ruling  military  class  of  landowners  supported  by  agri- 
cultural serfs,  helots  —  a  social  system  derived  from  Minoan  life. 
Having  nothing  to  do  but  drill  and  fight,  the  military  class  naturally 
developed  an  ambitious  policy  of  conquest.  Toward  the  close  of  the 
eighth  century  they  had  waged  a  war  of  aggression  upon  Messenia. 
The  population  of  this  country  at  the  time  was  "  Achaean  "  —  a  blend 
of  aborigines  with  early  Greek-speaking  immigrants  —  among  whom 
doubtless  Dorians  had  already  settled.  Whatever  the  pretext  for 
the  war  may  have  been,  the  Spartan  poet  Tyrtaeus  gives  the  real 
motive  as  a  desire  "  to  plough  and  plant  fertile  Messenia."  The 
same  poet,  who,  living  shortly  after  the  time,  is  our  only  reliable 
authority  for  the  event,  tells  us  that  "  for  nineteen  years  the  fathers  of 
our  fathers,  warriors  stout  of  heart,  fought  unresting  to  possess  her; 
and  in  the  twentieth  the  foemen,  forsaking  their  rich  fields,  fled  from 
the  lofty  heights  of  Mount  Ithome."  Many  of  the  conquered  were 
reduced  to  serfdom:  "Like  asses  worn  with  heavy  loads,  bitterly 
are  they  forced  to  bring  their  master  the  half  of  all  the  soil  produces; 
and  whenever  the  baleful  fate  of  death  overtakes  their  lord,  they  and 
their  wives  must  needs  join  in  lamenting  him."  ^^ 

l4AIcman;  H.  Civ.  no.  43,  and  the  other  fraaments  in  Bergk,  Anthologia  Lyrica.  Also 
the  newlv  discovered  fragment.  Or.  Hell.  I.  no.    8:  — 

15  Laconia  during  the  Middle  Age;  p.  27.  The  Minoan  social  organization,  p.  17.  Quo- 
tations from  Tyrtaeus;   H.   Civ.   no.   42.   5-7. 


86  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Second  Messenian  war,  about  650.  After  this  conquest  we  hear 
of  other  Lacedaemonian  wars  with  neighbors,  not  all  so  fortunate. 
There  were,  too,  internal  disturbances,  which  detracted  from  the 
reputation  of  the  state.  Taking  advantage  of  their  weakness,  the 
Messenians,  supported  by  Argives,  Arcadians,  and  Pisatans,  revolted. 
In  their  iirst  struggles  with  this  powerful  coalition,  the  Lacedaemon- 
ians were  beaten,  and  lost  courage.  It  was  the  most  critical  period 
of  their  early  history.  Wealth,  art,  poetry,  the  refinements  of  life  had 
developed  here  as  nowhere  in  the  peninsula;  in  the  pursuit  of  culture 
and  comfort  the  Spartans  were  fast  losing  their  warlike  character.  It 
was  under  these  untoward  conditions  that  Tyrtaeus  came  forward 
to  inspire  and  guide.  He  was  not  merely  a  poet  but  a  statesman  and 
military  leader,  as  was  Solon  shortly  afterward  at  Athens.  Through 
his  generalship  the  Laconians  conquered  Messenia.  In  battle  songs 
he  roused  his  countrymen  to  fight  and  die,  if  need  be,  for  the  father- 
land, setting  before  them  as  an  alternative  to  victory  a  life  of  wander- 
ing beggary.  "  A  noble  thing  it  is  to  die  a  valiant  man,  falling  in 
the  front  line  of  warriors,  in  battle  for  the  fatherland.  Most  griev- 
ous of  all  fates  is  to  leave  one's  city  and  fertile  fields  and  to  wander 
begging  with  a  dear  mother  and  aged  father  and  little  children  and 
wedded  wife."  After  a  long  hard  struggle  the  Messenians  who 
failed  to  escape  from  the  country  resumed  the  }oke  of  serfdom. '^'^ 

Conquest  and  the  land  system.  In  her  earlier  conquests  Sparta 
had  readily  admitted  the  higher  class  to  citizenship  on  condition  of 
removing  to  the  governing  city.^'  In  this  way  all  central  Laconia 
became  the  private  property  of  the  Spartan  citizens;  and  when  Mes- 
senia was  subdued,  the  Spartans  distributed  among  themselves  a 
broad  district  extending  through  the  centre  of  that  country  to  the 
western  coast.  '  All  the  towns  disappeared  from  this  region,  as  they 
had  disappeared  from  central  Laconia. 

The  lot  assigned  the  individual  Spartan  was  of  such  a  size  as  to 
supply  him  with  seventy  medimni  of  barley  and  his  wife  with 
twelve,  and  oil  and  wine  in  proportion.  The  farms  thus  granted 
by  the  state  were  hereditary  and  inalienable.  Other  lands  were  freely 
bought  and  sold,  and  in  time  it  became  permissible  to  give  away  or 
bequeath   the   hereditary    lot.     The    result    was    that    differences    in 

ifiTvrtaeus;  Botsford,  Source-Book,  p.  141-3;  Plato,  Law.?,  i.  629  a;  Philochorus,  in 
FHG.  'I.  p.  393.  55  f . ;  Paus.  iv.  18;  Justin  iii.  5.5;  Hcracleides  of  Lembos,  in  FHG.  III. 
p.    170.   13. 

17  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  17,  1270  a;  Ephorus,  in  Strabo  viii.  5.  4. 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON  87 

wealth  arose  amonc;  the  Spartans.  As  the  citizens  were  forbidden 
to  engage  in  trade  of  every  kind,  their  only  lawful  source  of  income 
was  agriculture  and  grazing.  Having  originally  adopted  iron  as 
money,  as  had  various  other  Greek  states  at  a  time  when  this  metal 
was  still  scarce,  they  were  compelled  by  law  to  adhere  to  it  centuries 
after  silver  and  gold  had  elsewhere  become  current.^ ** 

In  Laconia,  as  in  Minoan  Crete,  the  ruling  community  tended  to 
make  of  itself  a  military  caste  on  the  basis  of  a  socialism  rigorously 
enforced  by  the  state.  At  first  liberal  with  the  citizenship,  the  Spar- 
tans in  time  hedged  themselves  strictly  in,  refusing  except  on  the 
rarest  occasions  to  admit  a  stranger  to  their  political  community  and 
ruling  in  a  lordly  spirit  over  their  subjects.  The  elements  of  the 
social  and  governmental  system,  derived  from  the  Minoans,  they 
gradually  (1000-600)  adapted  to  their  own  requirements;  and  the 
discipline,  described  in  the  following  pages,  did  not  become  severe 
till  the  sixth  century. 

To  maintain  their  social  and  political  superiority,  the  Spartans 
constituted  themselves  as  a  perpetual  army  and  transformed  their 
city  into  a  camp.  Their  whole  life  was  occupied  with  training. 
This  principle  controlled  marriage,  the  birth  and  education  of  chil- 
dren, economy  and  occupation  —  in  brief  every  activity  of  life.  In 
other  countries  of  Greece  custom  gave  the  father  the  option  of  rearing 
his  child  or  of  putting  it  to  death  immediately  after  birth.  In  Sparta 
this  function  was  usurped  by  the  elders  of  the  tribe.  If  they  found 
the  infant  weak  or  deformed,  they  ordered  it  exposed  in  a  glen  of 
Mount  Taygetus.  If,  however,  he  reached  the  standard  of  strength 
and  shapeliness,  they  directed  the  father  to  rear  him.  To  the  seventh 
year  children  were  in  the  care  of  their  mothers  and  of  nurses,  who 
were  competent  women  strictly  supervised  by  the  state.  The  child 
was  trained  to  eat  coarse  food  without  complaint,  to  cultivate  bravery 
and  a  cheerful  disposition.  On  reaching  the  age  of  seven  he  was 
taken  from  his  mother  and  placed  directly  under  the  control  of  the 
state.  In  the  organization  of  these  boys  in  troops  under  youthful 
captains  of  prudence  and  daring  fqr  athletic  and  military  drill,  and 
in  their  education  in  reading  and  music,  there  was  a  thoroughgoing 
similarity  to  Cretan  conditions  already  described.  It  was  not  often 
that  the  Spartan  boys  were  permitted  to  bathe  or  anoint  themselves 

18  Produce  of  a  lot;  Plut.  Lvc.  S.  The  Aeginetan  medimnus,  used  in  Laconia,  2J^  bu. 
Original  inalienability  of  the  lot;  Plut.  Ag.  5.  Alienable  before  Aristotle;  Polit.  ii.  9.  13 
ff.,  1270  a.     Iron  money:  Xen.   Const.  Lac.  7.  5;   Polyb.  vi.  49;   Plut.  Lye.  9;  Lys.  3. 


88  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

with  oil.  They  had  no  bed-clothing  but  slept  in  their  companies  on 
piles  of  rushes  they  had  gathered  from  the  banks  of  the  Eurotas. 
Under  the  direction  of  their  captain  they  cooked  their  own  meals, 
the  bigger  boys  bringing  logs  for  the  fire,  the  smaller  gathering  pot 
herbs.  They  contributed  also  what  they  had  stolen  from  the  gardens 
or  from  the  tables  of  the  men.  Theft  was  encouraged  as  an  exercise 
in  agility  and  cleverness;  one  caught  in  the  act  was  punished  for 
clumsiness  by  flogging  and  fasting.  Their  meals  were  purposely 
made  scant  as  an  inducement  to  ingenuity  in  providing  extras,  and  as 
a  means  of  developing  tall,  slender  bodies.  Once  a  year  the  supreme 
test  of  endurance  was  applied,  when  at  the  altar  of  Artemis  Orthia, 
the  great  Minoan  goddess,  the  boys  submitted  to  a  flogging.  Some 
endured  to  death.  The  severe  training  resulted  not  only  in  strength, 
agility,  and  endurance,  but  also  in  a  quiet,  modest  bearing  which  has 
no  parallel  in  modern  life.  The  young  Spartans  walked  the  streets, 
their  hands  within  the  folds  of  their  cloaks,  their  gaze  fixed  on  the 
ground  before  them.  "  You  m-ight  sooner  expect  a  stone  image  to 
find  voice  than  one  of  these  Spartan  youths;  to  divert  the  eye  of  a 
bronze  statue  were  less  difficult."  ^^ 

Barrack  life.  At  the  age  of  twenty  the  youth  became  a  man  liable 
to  service  in  the  field.  It  was  now  permitted  him  to  marry,  but  for  a 
long  time  he  could  see  his  wife  only  by  stealth.  In  fact  he  never  had 
the  enjoyment  of  a  home,  but  passed  his  entire  life  in  military  drill, 
eating  and  sleeping  in  the  barracks.  At  the  age  mentioned  he  joined 
a  syssition  (mess).  It  comprised  about  fifteen  members,  who  filled 
vacancies  by  cooptation.  Their  ballots  were  bread  crumbs;  and  so 
great  a  value  did  they  set  on  unanimity  that  a  single  adverse  ballot 
sufficed  to  debar  a  candidate.  Each  member  contributed  his  monthly 
share  of  barley,  wine,  cheese,  and  figs,  with  a  little  cash  for  luxuries. 
Their  meat  was  chiefly  pork  and  wild  game.  The  former  was  an 
ingredient  of  their  famous  black  broth :  — 

If  you  should  live  in  Lacedaemon's  bounds, 
You  must  comply  with  all  the  fashions  there; 
Go  to  their  spare  pheiditia  for  supper, 
And  feast  on  their  black  broth;  and  not  disdain 
To  wear  fierce  whiskers,  and  seek  no  indulgence 
Further  than   this;   but  keep  the  old  customs, 
Such  as  their  country  doth  compel. ^'^ 

19  Training  of  boys  and  youths;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  1-5  (H.  Civ.  No.  26);  Plut.  Lye.  16- 
2\;  Lac.  Prov.  32;  Plato,  Laws,  i.  633  ff. ;  Arist.  PoUt.  iv.  9.  7  f.,  1294  b;  vii.  2.  9,  1324  b; 
viii.  1.  4,  1337  a;  4.   1-7,  1338  b;  Quotation;   Xen.  Const.  Lac.  3.  5. 

ao  Antiphanes,  in  Atlien,  iv,  21.     Pheiditia.  the  same  as  syssitia. 


CRETE  AND  LACED AEMON  89 

Mature  men.  At  thirty  the  Spartan  became  a  mature  man,  privi- 
leged to  attend  the  assembly  and  to  fill  such  political  offices  as  re- 
quired no  advanced  age  qualification.  Continuing  their  military 
exercises,  the  men  passed  the  remainder  of  their  time  in  the  gymnasia 
and  clubs  or  at  the  syssitia,  discoursing  in  brief  "  Laconic  "  satire, 
not  on  money  and  business  matters,  but  on  the  "  honorable  and  base." 
The  austerities  of  life  found  relief  in  the  merriment  of  wine  parties. 
Among  the  images  of  their  deities  was  a  little  statue  of  the  god  of 
Laughter.  The  severity  was  mitigated,  too,  in  campaigns,  which 
accordingly  seemed  to  them  a  relief  from  the  labors  of  peace.^^ 

Girls  and  women.  Girls  underwent  a  similar  training.  They, 
too,  practiced  running,  wrestling,  leaping,  and  throwing  the  discus 
and  spear,  contending  for  prizes  in  these  sports  before  the  assembled 
citizens.  The  state  required  such  exercises,  as  it  considered  health 
and  strength  in  women  essential  to  the  physical  perfection  of  the 
race.  Their  presence  at  the  competition  of  youths,  with  approval 
and  raillery,  incited  to  the  utmost  the  development  of  the  contestants' 
energy  and  skill.  The  women  had  a  part  as  well  in  many  religious 
festivals.  The  parthenia  of  Alcman  are  choral  songs  for  girls,  who  in 
the  ambrosial  night  bear  a  mantle  to  Artemis  as  a  gift,  while  the  stars 
contend  with  them  in  beauty,  and  streaming  tresses  grace  the  leader 
like  gold  unalloyed.  In  nimbleness,  strength,  and  loveliness  of  form 
these  athletic  girls  are  like  steeds  compactly  built  that  win  the  prize 
with  ringing  hoofs  —  creatures  of  winged  dreams.  Thus  Alcman 
sings.-- 

Married  women.  Their  training  continued  only  till  marriage. 
The  chief  wedding  rite  was  a  pretended  abduction  of  the  bride  by 
force  ^-  a  relic  of  the  primitive  custom  of  marriage  by  actual  capture. 
While  their  husbands  lived  in  the  barracks,  they  enjoyed  leisure  and 
comparative  luxury  at  home.  Through  dowries  and  inheritances 
they  gradually  accumulated  property  till,  in  the  time  of  Aristotle, 
they  owned  nearly  two-fifths  of  the  land.  This  accumulation  of 
wealth  in  their  hands,  under  conditions  as  they  existed  in  Laconia, 
tended  to  impoverish  the  men,  to  lessen  the  number  who  had  the 
means  of  performing  citizen  duties,  hence  to  weaken  the  state.  Hav- 
ing greater  leisure,  the  women  probably  attained  to  a  higher  intel- 

21  Plut.  Lyc.  19-25;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  1;  sententious  sayings  of  the  Spartans  collected  in 
Plut.  Laconian  Proverbs. 

22  Training  of  girls  and  the  resulting  beauty  of  women;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  1;  Plut. 
Lyc.  14;  Aristoph.  Lysistr.  78  ff. ;  Strabo  x.  1.  13;  Athen.  xiii.  20.  Alcman;  H.  Civ. 
Tio.   43. 


90  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

lectual  level  than  their  husbands.  We  hear  much,  too,  of  their 
patriotism.  They  held  up  before  husband,  son,  or  father  the  high 
Spartan  standard  of  honesty  and  valor.  In  all  Greece  the  women 
of  Sparta  alone  ruled  the  men.  Yet  notwithstanding  the  praises  of 
other  writers,  Aristotle  lays  severe  strictures  on  their  character;  and 
it  may  well  be  that  they  deteriorated  before  his  age.  So  degenerate 
were  they  in  the  fourth  century  as  to  prove  in  time  of  invasion  a 
greater  mischief  even  than  the  enemy. '^ 

A  self-imposed,  socialistic  despotism.  We  find  accordingly  at 
Sparta  a  socialistic  community  under  a  self-imposed  despotism, 
which  sacrificed  the  individual  to  the  ideal  good  of  the  state,  which 
eradicated  the  family  with  its  powerful  moral  influence,  and  rol:)bed 
marriage  of  its  sanctity,  compelling  all  the  young  to  regard  the  elders 
as  their  parents,  and  making  it  a  function  of  the  older  people  to 
admonish  and  to  chastise  the  younger  as  their  children.  By  limiting 
education  almost  exclusively  to  physical  exercise  the  system  tended  to 
stunt  the  intellect  and  the  imagination.  These  defects,  however, 
showed  themselves  but  gradually  with  the  lapse  of  centuries. 

Social  classes.  Among  the  Spartans  were  degrees  of  rank. 
Highest  in  nobility  were  the  two  royal  families  from  whom  respec- 
tively were  taken  the  two  kings.  Below  were  other  hereditary  nobles, 
who  alone  were  qualified  for  membership  in  the  gerousia  (senate, 
council).  Still  lower  were  the  mass  of  commons,  whose  means 
enabled  them  to  contribute  to  the  syssitia,  and  who  were  physically 
able  to  undergo  the  training.  All  who  had  these  qualifications  were 
"  peers."  Those  who  failed  in  either  respect  were  "  inferiors."  The 
latter  were  undoubtedly  debarred  from  political  rights,  which  how- 
ever they  could  resume  on  making  good  the  deficiency.^* 

Helots.  Reference  has  incidentally  been  made  to  the  helots,  who 
were  serfs,  like  those  of  Crete.  Most  probably  they  originated  in  a 
class  of  Minoan  serfs,  increased  by  conquest,  perhaps  too  in  early 
time  by  debt  and  oppression,  till  finally  they  came  to  be  many  times 
their  masters  in  number.  They  were  assigned  to  the  lands  of  the 
citizens,  who  were  forbidden  to  enfranchise  them  or  to  sell  them  out- 
side the  country.  The  idea  was  that  they  belonged  to  the  state  rather 
than  to  the  individual.     They  lived  with  their  families  in  cottages 

23  Property  of  women;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  IS,  1270  a.  High  standard;  Hdt.  v.  51;  vii.  239; 
Plut.  Lvc.    14  f.     Aristotle's  strictures;   Polit.   ii.   9.   5-lS,   1269  f . ;   cf.   Xen,   Hrll.   vi.   5.   28. 

•J4  On  division  into  nobles  and  commons  Arist.  Pol.  ii.  '9.  On  the  inferiors  Xen.  Hell.  iii. 
3,  6,  cf.  Gilbert.  (Gfe.  Const.  Antiq.)  p.  12  ff.,  39  f.  and  notes  for  a  discussion  of  these  prob- 
lems. 


CRETE  AND  LACED AEMON  91 

on  the  lots  assigned  them,  rendered  to  their  masters  the  amount  of 
produce  fixed  by  law,  and  kept  the  rest  for  themselves.  In  fruitful 
years  they  could  save  something,  which  they  occasionally  increased 
by  labor  for  others  or  by  plunder  in  war,  with  the  result  that  many 
acquired  considerable  estates.  In  addition  to  tilling  the  soil  they 
aided  in  preparing  their  masters'  meals  and  performed  any  other 
menial  labor  imposed  by  their  individual  lords  or  by  the  state.  In 
war  they  served  as  light  troops,  or  as  oarsmen  in  the  fleet,  attended  to 
the  wounded,  and  waited  on  their  masters.  When  required  to  serve 
in  the  heavy  infantry,  as  often  happened  in  the  Peloponnesian  war, 
the  meritorious  were  rewarded  with  freedom.-^ 

Freedmen.  We  hear  of  several  kinds  and  degrees  of  freedmanship, 
without  being  able  to  define  them  all.  The  neodamodeis,  "  new  cit- 
izens," performed  military  duty,  but  lacked  the  franchise.  The 
mothones  formed  a  large  class,  many  of  whom  seem  to  have  been  the 
children  of  Spartan  fathers  and  helot  mothers.  They  were  brought 
up  as  foster-brothers  of  the  youths.  Though  lacking  political  rights, 
they  were  personally  free  and  shared  in  the  Spartan  training.  Some 
became  prominent  in  military  offices  and  acquired  the  full  citizen- 
ship.2« 

The  policy  of  degrading  the  helots.  Notwithstanding  favors 
thus  occasionally  received,  the  condition  of  the  helots  was  wretched. 
They  were  kept  in  mind  of  their  servitude  by  the  clothes  they  wore, 
a  dogskin  cap  and  mantle  of  sheepskin  girded  at  the  waist  by  a 
broad  belt.  The  same  dress,  it  is  true,  was  worn  from  primitive 
times  by  free  rural  laborers  in  other  parts  of  Hellas;  but  this  cir- 
cumstance did  nothing  to  mitigate  the  contrast  in  Lacedaemon  between 
serfs  apd  lords.  Whereas  the  Spartans  were  forbidden  sweetmeats 
and  excessive  drinking  and  all  immoral  songs,  they  would  not  permit 
the  helots  to  sing  the  noble  lays  of  the  great  national  poets,  but 
compelled  them  on  occasions  to  make  an  exhibition  of  intoxication 
and  of  their  low  melodies  and  dances,  as  a  warning  to  the  Spartan 
youth  to  beware  of  such  practices.-^ 

The  crypteia.     To  overawe  the  helots  and  keep  them  in  a  spirit 

25  Derivation  of  "helots"  from  the  name  of  the  town  of  Helos;  Ephorus,  in  Strabo  viii. 
5.  4.  Theopompus,  in  Athen.  vi.  88,  considered  them  conquered  Achaeans.  Antiochus,  in 
strabo  vi.  32.  thought  them  Lacedaemonians.  Manner  of  life;  Ephorus,  in  Strabo  viii.  5. 
4;  Plut.  Lye.  28  (cf.  8);  Comp.  Num.  2;  Ages.  3;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  6.  3.  In  war;  Hdt. 
ix.  80;  Thuc.   iv.  26,  80;  Xen.  Hell.  vi.  5.  28. 

20  Neodamodeis;  Pollux  iii.  83;  Thuc,  vii.  19;  viii.  5;  Xen.  Hell  v.  2.  24.  Mothones; 
Phvlarchos,    in    Athen.    vi.    102. 

27  Myron,   in  Athen.   xiv.   74;  Theopompos,  in  Athen.   vi.   74;   Plut.   Lye.  28. 


92  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

of  subjection,  the  government  instituted  a  secret  police  force,  termed 
cr)^pteia,  comprising  the  most  prudent  young  men  of  Sparta.  Armed 
with  daggers,  these  policemen  were  accustomed  to  range  through 
the  country.  Concealing  themselves  in  the  daytime  and  travelling 
by  night,  they  used  to  cut  down  any  helot  to  whom  suspicion  attached. 
To  avoid  incurring  thus  the  guilt  of  murder,  says  Aristotle,  the  ephors 
were  accustomed  every  year  on  entering  office,  to  proclaim  war  upon 
the  helots.-^ 

The  Spartan  domain  and  the  surrounding  perioeci.  Spartans 
and  helots  have  been  considered  in  connection  because  of  their  inter- 
dependence as  lords  and  serfs,  as  well  as  because  of  their  local  rela- 
tions. Helots  were  found  only  in  the  homes  and  on  the  lands  of 
the  Spartans.  Extending  nearly  around  this  domain  was  a  strip 
of  territory  occupied  by  the  perioeci,  "  dwellers  around."  They  lived 
in  towns  or  cities  (poleis)  of  their  own,  about  a  hundred  in  number. 
Many  were  originally  free  but  had  been  reduced  to  dependence  by 
Sparta.  It  is  equally  clear  that  many  were  colonies  formed  by 
Sparta,  in  part  with  immigrants  from  other  countries.-^  The  object 
of  the  Spartans  in  thus  surrounding  their  domain  with  a  chain  of 
colonies  is  evident.  In  the  first  place,  they  wished  in  this  way  to 
provide  a  defense  for  their  territory.  More  important  was  their 
desire  to  cut  off  the  helots  from  the  outside  world,  leaving  the  neigh- 
bors no  opportunity  to  interfere  and  the  helots  no  hope  of  escape.  In 
return  for  the  favor  shown  them  by  Sparta,  the  perioeci  thus  stood 
guard  over  the  serfs. 

The  perioecic  towns.  Each  perioecic  town  had  its  own  govern- 
ment usually  immune  from  Spartan  interference.  The  inhabitants 
were  personally  free,  and  as  in  any  Greek  state  were  divided  into 
nobles  and  commons.  Their  equality  with  other  Greeks  is  shown  by 
the  part  they  took  as  competitors  in  the  great  national  games.  Not 
subject  to  the  Spartan  discipline,  they  enjoyed  a  relatively  large 
liberty  in  the  employment  of  their  time  and  in  the  choice  of  occu- 
pations. Many  were  farmers;  but  as  the  best  lands  had  been  taken  by 
the  ruling  people. ^°  a  great  number  devoted  themselves  to  manufactur- 
ing and  commerce.  They  worked  the  iron  mines  of  Mount  Taygetus, 
and  manufactured  various  iron  and  steel  fabrics,  such  as  keys,  swords, 
helmets,  and  axes.     As  workers  in  bronze  they  showed  artistic  taste. 

28  Aristotle,   in   Plut.   Lye.   28;   Plato  Laws,   i.    633  c. 

29  Ephorus,  in  Strabo  viii.  4.  11;  5.  4;  Theopompus,  ih.  6.  11. 

30  Isoc.  Panaih.  179. 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON  93 

We  hear  of  their  drinkini];  cups,  their  shoes,  chairs,  tables,  and 
chariots.  Some  manufactured  sea-purple,  with  which  they  dyed 
woollen  garments.  Commerce  brought  them  wealth,  for  their  wares 
were  in  high  favor  throughout  the  world.  They  were  not  without 
intellectual  eminence,  for  they  gave  several  poets  to  Hellas  and  their 
wisest  man,  Myson,  was  reckoned  among  the  Seven  Sages.  They  had 
their  religious  festivals,  in  which  the  Spartans  enjoyed  a  part,  as  at 
the  annual  national  celebration  to  Artemis  at  Caryae,  where  the  Lace- 
daemonian girls  joined  in  the  dance.,"^ 

Relation  of  the  perioeci  to  Sparta.  The  towns  themselves  were 
individually  subject  to  Sparta,  evidently  on  fixed  terms.  Spartan 
citizens  were  not  permitted  to  reside  or  possess  property  within  a 
perioecic  town,  whereas  the  perioeci  were  privileged  to  reside  in  Sparta 
for  the  sake  of  conducting  business  there.  They  paid  the  ruling 
city  contributions  in  time  of  need,  and  in  war  performed  military 
duty.  Their  heavy  infantry  was  only  less  efficient  than  the  Spartan. 
The  arsenals  and  warships  of  Lacedaemon  were  theirs  though  neces- 
sarily under  Spartan  command,  and  they  formed  a  considerable  part 
of  the  crews.  In  army  and  navy,  men  of  this  class  rose  by  merit  to 
high  positions.  None,  however,  obtained  access  to  the  Spartan  citi- 
zenship or  shared  in  the  Lacedaemonian  government  or  in  any  way 
influenced  its  policy.  And  yet  in  the  Lacedaemonian  state  they  were 
not  regarded  as  aliens;  they  with  the  Spartans  constituted  the  "  Lace- 
daemonians " —  citizens  of  the  several  cities  included  in  the  state  — 
whereas  the  helots  before  emancipation  were  excluded  from  the  name 
and  civil  rights. ^^ 

The  amount  of  Spartan  interference  in  their  local  affairs  was  vari- 
able. Because  of  its  exposed  position  Cythera  was  occupied  by  a  gar- 
rison under  a  harmost,  associated  with  a  civil  magistrate.  Other 
towns  were  ordinarily  liable  to  occupation  only  when  threatened  by 
an  enemy.  Contented  with  their  lot,  the  perioeci  long  remained 
faithful.  With  the  progress  of  time,  however,  as  the  number  of 
Spartans  dwindled,  the  burden  of  service  fell  more  and  more  heavily 
upon  them.  Then  first  they  became  dissatisfied  with  their  con- 
dition.^^ 

31  Xen.  Hell.  v.  3.  9;   Plut.   Cim.   11;   Paus.  iii.   10.  7;   22.   S. 

32  The  Spartan  state  and  the  kings  owned  land  in  the  perioecic  towns;  Thuc.  ii.  27; 
Xen.  Const.  Lac.  15.  3;  cf.  Plato,  Alcib.  i.  123  a.  Contributions,  not  tribute;  Ephorus,  in 
Strabo  viii.   5.   4.     Military  service;   Hdt.   vii.   234;   ix.   28. 

33  Cythera;  Thuc.  iv.  53.  Discontent  in  fourth  century;  Xen.  Hell.  iii.  3.  6;  vi.  5.  32; 
vii.  2.  2. 


94  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  amount  of  personal  liberty  which  the  perioeci  continued  to 
enjoy  was  great.  Those  who  so  lived  as  to  incur  no  political  sus- 
picion were  secure  enough  in  life  and  property.  Yet  this  condition 
existed  on  sufferance  only;  for  the  ephors  had  a  right  to  arrest  and 
put  to  death  without  trial  any  perioecus  whom  they  judged  danger- 
ous.^'* 

This  power  was  moderately  exercised,  and  the  bond  of  interest  and 
sympathy  which  united  the  perioeci  to  Sparta  remained  strong. 

The  Lacedaemonian  army.  The  primary  aim  of  the  social 
organization  and  discipline  was  the  military  superiority  of  Sparta. 
The  germ  of  her  phalanx  was  a  Minoan  inheritance  fostered  (1)  by 
her  rapidly  grown  exclusiveness;  (2)  by  the  superior  fertility  and 
extent  of  her  original  territory,  supporting  a  remarkably  large  num- 
ber of  landowners  of  sufficient  means  to  enable  them  to  equip  them- 
selves for  heavy  infantry  service;  (3)  by  the  absence  of  an  acropolis 
of  imposing  height  to  exercise  a  moral  power  of  protective  control 
over  the  neighborhood,  compelling  an  unusual  dependence  on  the 
strong  military  arm. 

In  the  time  of  Tyrtaeus  the  phalanx  had  not  reached  its  complete 
development.  As  yet  the  warrior  held  no  fixed  position,  but  it  greatly 
depended  on  his  own  courage  whether  he  would  fight  in  the  front 
rank  among  the  champions  or  farther  back  in  the  lines  or  stand 
"  far  off  beyond  the  range  of  darts."  It  was  meritorious  in  the  young 
men  to  take  the  front  rank.  Some  were  heavy  infantry  and  others 
light.  The  heavy  footmen  wore  a  helmet  with  lofty  crest,  a  great 
shield  covering  breast,  body,  hips,  and  legs,  or  in  its  place  a  round 
embossed  shield  with  a  cuirass  beneath.  For  offense  they  carried 
swords  and  long  lances.  The  light  troops,  crouching  beneath  their 
bucklers,  in  loose  formation  hurled  stones  from  slings  and  threw 
their  polished  javelins.^''*  The  metal  of  the  protecting  armor  was 
bronze,  whereas  their  weapons  of  offense  were  probably  now  of  iron, 
which  the  mines  of  Laconia  abundantly  furnished. 

In  time  the  citizen  body  of  light  troops  was  eliminated  and  the 
heavy-armed  were  organized  in  five  morae,  from  the  five  local  tribes 
into  which  the  Spartans  came  to  be  divided.  A  sixth  mora  as  a  guard 
for  the  kings  seems  to  have  been  formed  from  all  five  tribes.  As  the 
number  of  Spartans  declined,  the  vacant  places  in  the  mora  were 

.34  "  An  accursed  thing,"  says  Isocrates,  Panath.   181,   "  which  among  other  Greeks  it  is 
not  permitted  to  do  even  to  slaves." 
35  Tyrtaeus,  in  Botsford,  Source-Book,  p.   141-3. 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON  95 

filled  with  perioeci,  whereas  the  helots  usually  served  as  light  troops 
or  as  mere  laborers.  The  military  age  extended  from  the  twentieth  to 
the  sixtieth  year. 

The  kings.  The  commanders  of  the  army,  and  in  the  earliest 
known  constitution  the  chief  magistrates,  were  the  two  kings  —  froi-n 
the  royal  families  of  the  Agiads  and  Eurypontids  respectively. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  the  double  kingship,  the  insti- 
tution was  looked  upon  as  a  safeguard  against  tyranny.  The  per- 
petual discord  between  the  kings  weakened  their  office,  permitting  the 
growth  of  more  popular  institutions. •'**^ 

The  kings  were  priests  of  Zeus  and  certain  other  gods,  and  judges 
in  cases  concerning  family  law  and  public  highways.  As  command- 
ers of  the  army  they  originally  had  a  right  to  declare  war  against 
whatsoever  enemy  they  pleased;  but  this  and  other  powers  were  grad- 
ually taken  from  them.  In  war  and  peace  they  received  fixed  portions 
of  the  sacrificial  victims  and  in  general  enjoyed  many  privileges  and 
honors.  Their  persons  were  sacred;  and  after  death  they  received 
worship  as  heroes.  On  the  decease  of  a  king  women  went  about 
the  streets  beating  on  copper  kettles,  while  mounted  messengers 
spread  the  news  throughout  Laconia  and  Messenia.  Representatives 
of  every  household  of  every  social  class,  under  penalty  of  the  law, 
gathered  to  mourn  the  dead.  Like  Asiatics  on  similar  occasions,  the 
assembled  thousands,  men  and  women  intermingled,  "  beat  their  fore- 
heads with  a  right  good  will  and  make  lamentation  without  stint,  say- 
ing this  one  who  died  last  of  their  kings  was  the  best  of  all."  ^" 
Here  doubtless  survived  a  shred  of  the  pomp  and  ceremony  practiced 
by  their  ancestry,  on  the  Minoan  side,  centuries  earlier  at  the  beehive 
tombs. 

The  council  (gerousia).  The  gerousia  —  council  of  old  men  — 
was  composed  of  twenty-eight  elders  and  the  two  kings.  The  former 
were  chosen  from  a  few  noble  gentes.  They  were  required  to  have 
reached  the  age  of  sixty,  and  to  have  gained  distinction  for  sobriety, 
virtue,  and  wisdom.  The  mode  of  election  was  peculiar.  Candi- 
dates for  the  vacant  place  walked  through  the  assembly  one  by  one  in 
an  order  previously  determined  by  lot,  receiving  as  they  passed  the 
acclamation  of  the  people.     The  members  of  the  returning  board, 

36  The  Lacedaemonian  belief  that  the  two  royal  families  were  descended  from  twins 
(Hdt.  vi.  51)  is  one  of  various  possible  origins.     Discord;   Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  30,  1271  a. 

37Hdt.  vi.  56-8  (cf.  v.  75);  Thuc.  v.  66;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  13;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  29  f., 
1271  a  (stricture);  iii.  !4.  3.  128S  i 


96  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

supposed  to  be  ignorant  of  the  order  in  which  the  candidates  pre- 
sented themselves,  were  secreted  in  a  room  near  by,  where  they  could 
hear  without  seeing.  By  the  loudness  and  extent  of  the  acclamation 
they  determined  which  was  the  more  popular  and  therefore  the 
successful  candidate.  The  idea  seems  to  have  been  that  the  will  of 
the  people  expressed  itself,  not  by  a  majority  of  votes,  but  by  the 
intensity  of  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  assembly  as  a  whole.  This 
niethod,  which  Aristotle  describes  as  childish,  readily  admitted  con- 
nivance between  the  council  and  the  returning  board  for  thwarting 
the  popular  will.^^ 

The  functions  of  the  gerousia  were  like  those  of  the  Homeric 
council  but  far  more  definite.  It  considered  measures  to  be  presented 
to  the  assembly,  and  assisted  the  chief  magistrates  in  the  management 
of  public  affairs.  It  exercised  jurisdiction  in  cases  affecting  the  life 
or  civil  status  of  the  citizens  and  in  all  important  criminal  cases  in 
which  citizens  were  involved.  The  presidency  of  the  body,  originally 
belonging  to  the  kings,  was  in  time  transferred  to  the  ephors.^^ 

The  popular  assembly  (apella).  The  apella  —  popular  assem- 
bly —  comprised  the  fully  privileged  citizens  thirty  years  of  age  and 
upward,  who  served  in  the  heavy  infantry.  Under  the  presidency 
of  the  kings,  afterward  of  the  ephors,  it  elected  magistrates,  decided 
questions  concerning  the  succession  of  kings,  and  accepted  or  rejected 
the  measures  which  the  magistrates  and  council  rarely  brought  before 
it.  As  at  Rome,  the  members  of  the  assembly  had  no  right  to  initiate 
measures  or  to  join  in  the  debate;  they  were  strictly  limited  to  listen- 
ing and  voting.  Everywhere  in  Hellas,  however,  the  supreme  polit- 
ical authority  rested  ultimately  with  the  dominant  military  class; 
and  at  Sparta  accordingly  it  was  vested  in  the  assembly  of  heavy 
infantry.  This  body  it  was  which  wrested  the  supreme  power  from 
the  kings.  The  assembly  did  not  exercise  its  authority  directly, 
however,  but  devolved  it  upon  a  board  of  five  ephors,  elected  annu- 
ally from  the  qualified  citizens.  Only  in  questions  of  war,  peace,  and 
other  matters  of  unusual  importance  did  it  reserve  the  right  of  decision. 
The  government  was  a  broad  military  aristocracy  tempered  by  a  strong 
magistracy.*" 

38  Hdt.  vi.  57;  Thuc.  i.  20;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  10.  1-3;  Aesch.  Timarch.  180;  Dem.  Lept. 
107;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  24-8,  1270  f. ;  Plut.  Lye.  5,  26. 

3!)  H.  Civ.  no.  42.  4  (Tyrtaeus) ;  Arist.  PoHt.  iii.  1.  17,  1275  b;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  10.  2; 
Plut.  Agis,  11;  Ages.  19;  Pelop.  6. 

40  5r;0.  I.  no,  3342;  so-called  rhetra,  in  Plut.  Lye.  6;  H.  Civ.  no.  42.  4  (Tyrtaeus); 
Thuc.  i.  87;  v.  77;  Xen.  Hell.  ii.  2.  20;  4.  38;  iii.  2.  23;  iv.  6.  3;  v.  2.  11;  vi.  3.  3;  4.  3. 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON  97 

The  ephors.  The  ephors  — "  overseers  " —  evidently  existed  from 
very  early  time,  but  only  with  the  lapse  of  centuries  did  they  come 
to  supersede  the  kings  as  the  heads  of  the  state.  On  entering  office 
they  issued  this  edict:  "  Shave  your  mustaches  and  obey  the  laws, 
that  they  may  not  be  grievous  to  you."  The  fir.st  part  of  the  order 
enforced  the  custom  which  we  find  pictured  on  their  monuments;  the 
second  commanded  subjection  to  discipline.  These  magistrates  su- 
pervised the  training  of  youths  and  watched  over  the  conduct  of  the 
citizens  through  their  entire  lives.  They  acquired  the  right  to  pre- 
side over  the  gerousia  and  the  apella,  to  try  nearly  all  the  civil  cases, 
and  to  prosecute  criminals  before  the  council  of  elders.  Over  helots 
they  exercised  absolute  power,  and  in  cases  of  political  emergency 
they  could  put  a  perioecus  to  death  untried. 

Their  authority  extended  over  the  kings.  At  the  close  of  every 
nine-year  period  of  a  king's  reign  they  watched  the  sky  for  an  omen, 
which  if  found  deposed  him.  Oftener  by  threats  of  prosecution  for 
misconduct  they  drove  him  into  exile.  As  heads  of  the  state  they  con- 
ducted negotiations  with  other  governments.  These  powers  and 
many  others  of  slightly  less  importance  they  had  gradually  acquired 
before  the  opening  of  the  fourth  century.*^ 

III.     Argos,  Lacedaemon,  and  the  Peloponnesian  League 

Argos.  In  the  day  of  their  glory  the  kings  of  Mycenae  and 
Argos  governed  a  broad  mainland  realm  and  claimed  hegemony  over 
many  islands.  With  the  decline  of  the  Minoan  civilization  and  the 
immigration  of  northwestern  Greeks  their  power  declined;  and  in  the 
territory  once  subject  to  them  many  cities,  old  and  new,  maintained 
their  independence.  Such  was  the  condition  of  Argolis  when 
Pheidon,  king  or  as  some  say  tyrant,  ascended  the  throne.  His 
reign  cannot  be  certainly  dated,  and  his  achievements  display  a  semi- 
mythical  color.  On  the  whole  it  seems  to  accord  best  with  the  few 
known  facts  to  place  him  near  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century 
prior  to  the  Second  Messenian  war.  It  was  his  achievement  to  con- 
centrate all  Argolis  under  his  authority,  to  extend  his  sway  northward 
over  Corinth  and  Aegina,  and  southward  over  Cynuria,  the  narrow 
strip  of  land  between  Mount  Parnon  and  the  sea,  continuing  in  the 

41  The  list  of  ephors  begins  in  757  (Eusebius,  ed.  Karst,  p.  181),  but  the  institution  is 
earlier.  Character  and  functions;  Hdt.  i.  65;  v.  82;  Thuc.  i.  131;  Xen.  Const.  Lac.  4.  6; 
8.  4;  Plato,  Laws,  iii.  692;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  19-24,  1270  b;  iii.  1.  10,  1275  b;  v.  11.  2  f., 
1313  a;   Isoc.  Panath.   181;   Plut.   Lye.    7;   Cleom.   10;   Paus.   iii.   5.   2. 


98  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

island  of  Cythera.  Probably  it  was  he  who  led  the  Argives  to  an 
overwhelming  victory  over  the  Lacedaemonians  at  Hysiae.  Then  he 
invaded  Elis,  expelled  its  magisttrates  from  the  presidency  of  the 
Olympic  games,  and  assumed  that  office  himself.  This  act  is  char- 
acterized by  Herodotus  as  extreme  insolence.  By  spreading  abroad 
over  Peloponnese  the  system  of  measures  already  in  vogue  in  Aegina 
he  left  a  permanent  impress  of  his  name  on  that  part  of  Greece.  His 
imposing  personality  shed  a  sunset  glow  upon  the  departing  glory  of 
his  city.  While  bidding  fair  to  become  the  arbiter  of  Hellas,  he  was 
dislodged  from  his  hold  on  Olympia  by  a  coalition  of  Lacedaemonians 
and  Eleians;  and  his  death  fiinally  put  an  end  to  the  hopes  he  had 
raised.  His  successor  on  the  throne  was  a  weakling,  who  enjoyed 
scarcely  more  than  the  name  of  sovereign.  Argos  was  consequently 
in  no  position  to  set  bounds  to  the  expanding  power  of  Lacedaemon.*^ 

Arcadia.  The  ambition  of  the  Spartans  first  directed  itself  north- 
ward. There  was  the  tableland  of  Arcadia,  surmounted  by  high 
mountain  ranges,  which  divided  the  country  into  a  number  of  basins. 
In  each  basin  dwelt  a  canton  comprising  several  villages.  These 
mountaineers  were  a  simple  folk,  liberty-loving,  unpolished  and  war- 
like. Only  on  the  eastern  border  did  cities  grow  up  under  the  cul- 
tural influence  of  Argos.  Here  were  three  city-states,  Tegea,  Orcho- 
menus,  and  Mantineia.  No  political  bond  united  the  Arcadians,  but 
an  ethnic  sympathy  found  nurture  at  their  common  shrine  of  Zeus  at 
Lycosura,  where  they  joined  in  festive  worship.  Without  definite 
knowledge,  the  student  of  history  yet  gains  the  impression  that  they 
possessed  means  of  common  action  in  war.  In  their  conflict  with 
Laconia  they  seem  to  have  followed  the  lead  of  Tegea,  their  most 
powerful  state.*^ 

Lacedaemon  wins  the  headship  of  Arcadia,  600-550.  The 
Lacedaemonians,  after  their  conquests  of  Messenia,  could  not  long 
remain  at  peace  with  the  world.  Their  numbers  were  still  doubtless 
increasing,  and  they  coveted  more  lands  and  helots.  Their  social- 
political  organization,  framed  exclusively  for  war,  could  find  nurture 
in  nothing  but  conquest.     Their  kings  accordingly  sent  to  consult  the 

42Hdt.  vi.  127;  Ephorus,  in  Strabo  viii.  3.  33;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  10.  6,  1310  b;  Paus.  ii,  24. 
7;  Nicolaus  of  Damascus  in  FHG.  III.  p.  378.  41.  Appro.ximate  date  of  Pheidon;  Beloch, 
Griech.  Gesch.  I.  2.  195  f.  The  Mar.  Par.  30,  wrongly  places  him  about  900.  Gardner,  P., 
History  of  Ancirnt  Coinage  (Oxford,  1918)  109  ff.  places  Pheidon  a  century  earlier  and  as- 
cribes to  him  the  regulation  of  a  system  of  weights  and  measures  later  adopted  by  the 
Aeginetans  for  their  coinage  system. 

4.-5  Arcadia;  //.  ii.  611:  Ephorus,  in  FHG.  I,  p.  261.  97;  Strabo  viii.  8;  Paus.  viii.  Lyco- 
sura;   SGDI.  no.   1232;  Pindar,   Ol.  ix.   102  f. ;    Xen.  Anab.  i.  2.  10;   Paus.   viii.  2.   1;  38.  2. 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON 


oracle  of  Delphi  on  the  prospect  of  conquering  all  Arcadia, 
prophetess  answered :  — 


99 


The 


The   land  of  Arcadia  thou  askest;   thou  askest  loo  much;    I  refuse  it. 

Many  there  are  in  Arcadian  land,  stout  men,  eating  acorns; 

They  will  prevent  thee  from  this,   but  I  am  not  grudging  toward  thee; 

Tegea  beaten  with  sounding  feet  I  will  give  thee  to  dance  in, 

And  a  fair  plain  I  will  give  thee  to  measure  with  line  and  divide  it. 

Trusting  to  this  deceitful  oracle,  they  concentrated  their  strength 
against  Tegea;  but  they  were  beaten,  and  the  captives  taken  were 
compelled  to  work  the  fields  of  Tegea,  wearing  the  fetters  they  had 
brought  with  them  for  shackling  conquered  Arcadians. 

Several  times,  while  gaining  success  elsewhere,  they  tried  in  vain 
to  conquer  Tegea.     Finally  they  won  a  victory  over  that  state  but 


PELOPONXES 
LEAGUE 


i  States  dependent  upon  j^partu 
i  States  in   aUiance  with  Sparta 


iiorma,  i  Co.,iLt. 


not  such  as  to  promise  a  conquest.  Originally  they  had  planned  to 
helotize  the  Tegeans;  but  now  they  were  content  to  form  a  permanent 
alliance  with  them  (about  550).  Following  this  example,  the  Ar- 
cadian cantons  one  by  one  entered  into  league  with  Lacedaemon.** 

Lacedaemon  wins  the  hegemony  of  Peloponnese,  550-500. 
Meantime  the  struggle  between  Lacedaemon  and  Argos  continued, 
till  before  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  Sparta  had  wrested  from 
her  ancient  rival  Cynuria  and  Cythera.  From  the  reign  of  Pheidon 
the  Eleians  were  friendly  to  Lacedaemon,  through  whose  support 
they  had  conquered  a  broad  and  fertile  domain.  Hence  they  were 
ready  for  close  alliance  with  Sparta.  Corinth  and  Sicyon,  freed  from 
tyrannies,  entered  the  league;  then  some  states  of  Argolis,  as  Troezen 

44  Hdt.  i.  65-8.    Treaty  with  Tegea;  Plut.  Greek  Quest.  5;  Aristotle,  in  Hesych  xpT?CTOi. 


100  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  Epidaurus;  and  afterward  Megara  and  Aegina.  Before  the  close 
of  the  sixth  century,  all  the  states  of  Peloponnese  excepting  Argolis 
and  the  greater  part  of  Achaea,  were  leagued  with  Lacedaemon. 

Organization  of  the  Peloponnesian  league.  There  was  no  gen- 
eral federal  constitution;  but  a  separate  treaty  united  each  state  with 
Lacedaemon.  The  members  pledged  themselves  to  furnish  military 
forces  for  the  wars  waged  by  the  league,  to  serve  under  the  command 
of  the  Lacedaemonian  kings.  No  tributes  were  levied,  but  occasional 
contributions  were  required.  A  congress  of  deputies  met  at  Sparta  or 
Corinth  to  deliberate  on  federal  interests,  particularly  on  questions  of 
war,  peace,  and  alliance.  The  allies  were  free  to  manage  their  own 
affairs  and  the  burdens  of  war  were  light.  Their  representation  in 
the  common  diet  made  them  content  with  their  position,  for  they  felt 
that  they  were  free  and  had  a  fair  share  in  the  deliberations.  The 
statement  of  Herodotus  that  the  greater  part  of  Peloponnese  was  sub- 
jected to  Lacedaemon  is  therefore  wholly  misleading.  As  the  union 
rested  on  a  treaty  basis,  it  was  federal,  though  not  to  a  degree  after- 
ward attained  elsewhere.  Herself  under  the  rule  of  a  few,  and  there- 
fore hostile  to  both  tyrannies  and  democracies,  Lacedaemon  upheld 
oligarchy  among  her  allies.  To  this  end  she  sometimes  interfered 
in  the  home  politics  of  her  allies;  and  occasionally  she  felt  compelled 
to  check  excessive  ambition  or  self-aggrandizement  in  the  individual 
states  in  order  to  maintain  her  own  hegemony.  To  keep  themselves 
qualified  for  a  position  fraught  with  as  much  burden  as  honor,  the 
Spartans  increased  the  severity  of  their  discipline,  eschewed  the  re- 
finements they  had  formerly  allowed  themselves,  and  subjected  the 
individual  more  rigorously  to  the  state.  For  these  purposes  increased 
power  was  given  the  ephors,  who  in  the  sixth  century  began  to  super- 
sede the  kings  as  heads  of  the  state.  However  crude  and  imperfect, 
the  political  system  was  admirable  for  the  age.  Especially  it  created 
a  strong  well-centralized  military  force  at  a  time  when  the  danger  of 
Oriental  conquest  began  to  threaten  Greece.*^ 

45  Peloponnesian  league;  Hdt.  i.  68.  69;  v.  74,  91;  ix.  19;  Thuc.  i.  10,  18,  19,  40,  76;  ii.  7; 
V.  60;  Xen.  Hell.  ii.  2.  20;  vi.  3.  7;  Arist.  Polit.  iv.  11.  18,  1296  a;  Died.  xiv.  17;  Plut. 
Arist.  24  (init.).  .  „        .        ,, 

The  increase  in  the  severity  of  discipline  must  have  taken  place  essentially  after  Alcman 
and  Tyrtaeus,  and  connects  closely  with  the  rise  of  the  ephorate.  Asteropos,  probably 
about  620,  first  consolidated  the  ephorate  and  raised  it  to  a  higher  degree  of  power;  Plut. 
Cleom.  10.  The  honor  of  making  the  ephors  "  yoke-mates,"  equals,  of  the  kings  belongs 
to  Chilon  (Diog.  Laert.  i.  68),  whose  ephorate  falls  in  the  year  566-5  according  to  Eusebius, 
Chron.  p.  188.  This  year,  more  than  any  other,  is  epochal  in  both  political  and  cultural 
history;  with  the  increase  in  severity  of  discipline  the  civilization  of  Laconia,  as  archae- 
ology teaches,  began  to  decline.  After  Chilon  the  ephors  made  further  gains.  See  espe- 
cially Dickins,  JHS.  XXXII.  1-42. 


CRETE  AND  LACEDAEMON  101 


ADDITIONAL  READING 


I.  Crete. —  Greenidge,  Greek  Const.  Hist.,  115-21;  Thumser,  Griech.  Staat- 
salt.,  132-46;  Schomann,  Griech.  Alt.,  bk.  Ill  B;  Busolt,  Griech.  Gesch.,  I, 
326-46;  Semenoff,  Antiquitates  juris  publici  Cretensiuni,  etc.  (Petropoli,  1893); 
Xanthoudides,  S.  A.,  5  KfT/riKas  ToTjiVta/xos,  Athena,   XVI    (1904)    297-428. 

II.  Lacedaemon  and  Peloponnese. — Grote,  11  (pt.  ii),  chs.  iv-viii; 
Abbott,  I,  chs.  vi-viii;  Bury,  ch.  iii;  Holm,  I,  chs.  xv-xvii;  Busolt,  Griech. 
Gesch.,  I,  510-669,  700-11;  Greenidge,  Greek  Const.  Hist.,  78-115;  Gilbert, 
Const.  Antiq.,  3-91;  Thumser,  Griech.  Staatsalt,  146-257;  Schomann,  Griech. 
Alt.,  bk.  Ill  A;  Nilsson,  M.  P.,  "Die  Grundlagen  des  spartanischen  Lebens," 
Klio,  XII  (1912),  308-40;  Solari,  A.,  Ricerche  spartane  (Livorno,  1907),  re- 
prints of  various  studies;  Niese,  B.,  "  Neue  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte  und  Landes- 
kunde  Lakedamons,"  Gott.  Geselsch.,  1906,  pp.  101-42;  Ferguson,  Greek  Imper- 
ialism 79-97;  Dickins,  G.,  "Growth  of  Spartan  Policy,"  JHS.,  XXXII  (1912), 
1-42;  Grundy,  G.  B.,  "The  Policy  of  Sparta,"  op.  cit.,  261-76;  Toynbee,  A.  J., 
"  Growth  of  Sparta,"  JHS.,  XXXIII,  246-75.  For  other  works,  see  H.  Civ.. 
p.  172f. 


7TH  CENTURY  ARMOR 
(Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art) 

CHAPTER  VII 

ATHENS:     FROM   MONARCHY   TO   DEMOCRACY 

I.     Monarchy  and  Aristocracy 


Introduction.  While  the  Lacedaemonians  were  creating  a  great 
military  state,  Athens  was  developing  along  entirely  different  lines. 
Having  touched  upon  her  civilization  during  the  Middle  Age  in  con- 
nection with  the  general  condition  of  Hellas,  we  shall  now  follow 
her  separate  history  from  that  period  to  the  reforms  of  Cleisthenes.^ 

Unification  of  Attica,  about  1000-700.     In  the  Mycenaean  age 

1  For  the  early  cultural  history  of  Attica  the  remains  of  buildings  and  sculptures  and  the 
vases  with  their  paintings  are  of  primary  importance  (see  end  of  chapter).  There  are  a 
few  but  valuable  inscriptions;  IG.  I;  Hicks  and  Hill,  Nos.  4-12.  Ancient  historians  had 
the  use  of  many  other  epigraphic  and  archival  writings  now  lost,  including  an  official  list 
of  archons,  some  pre-Draconian  ordinances,  and  the  laws  of  Draco  (cf.  H.  Civ.  no.  77), 
Solon,  and  Cleisthcnes.  Contemporary  literary  works  are  the  flomeric  Hytiiu  to  Deiuctcr 
and  the  Forms  of  Solon.  Long  passages  on  this  period  arc  contained  in  Herodotus  (e.  g.  i. 
30-3,  59-64;  v.  55-103)  and  in  Thucydides  (e.  g.  i.  20,  126;  ii.  15  f. ;  vi.  53-9),  both  authors 
drawing  mainly  from  oral  tradition.  Of  the  Atthides,  special  histories  of  Attica  by  Hel- 
lanicos.  Demon.  Androtion,  Philochonus,  and  Istrus,  we  have  mere  fragments,  contained  in 
FHG  I.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  more  general  HUtorics  of  Pherecydes  (chiefly  gen- 
ealogies), Ephorus,  and  Theopompus.  For  the  beginnings  of  Athens  the  Atthides  are 
well  represented  by  Plutarch,    Theseus;  Androtion  was  much   used   by   Aristotle,   Constitu- 

102 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        103 

Attica,  as  tradition  and  archaeology  concur  in  teaching,  was  occu- 
pied by  several  indejjcndcnt  kingdoms.-  The  most  favorable  position 
among  them  was  held  by  Athens.  Its  Acropolis,  about  four  and  a 
half  miles  from  the  coast,  formed  the  natural  military  and  political 
centre  of  the  Cephissus  basin  in  the  heart  of  Attica.  By  conquest 
and  negotiation  the  kings  who  occupied  this  citadel  gradually  ex- 
tended their  sovereignty  over  the  entire  country.  Though  doubtless 
the  work  of  a  century  or  two,  the  unification  is  represented  in  tradition 
as  the  achievement  of  a  single  king.  "  When  Theseus  came  to  the 
throne,  he,  a  powerful  and  wise  ruler,  improved  the  administration 
of  the  country  in  other  ways,  and  in  particular  he  dissolved  the 
councils  and  separate  governments,  and  united  all  the  inhabitants  of 
Attica  in  the  present  city,  establishing  one  council  and  town  hall 
(Prytaneion).  They  continued  to  live  on  their  own  lands,  but  he 
compelled  them  to  resort  to  Athens  as  their  metropolis,  and  hence- 
forth they  were  all  inscribed  in  the  roll  of  citizens."  ^  Among  the 
last  steps  in  the  process  were  the  annexation  of  Eleusis,  about  700, 
and,  nearly  a  century  later,  the  acquisition  of  Salamis  by  Solon.* 

The  dynasty  of  the  Medontidae,  ending  in  713-12.  Although 
the  names  of  many  kings  are  embedded  in  Attic  myth,  we  can  only  be 
certain  that  the  last  ruling  dynasty  was  that  of  the  Medontidae. 
For  the  government  of  this  period  we  have  nothing  more  than  the 
survival  of  institutions.  It  is  reasonable  to  assume  as  elements  of 
the  constitution  a  king,  council  of  nobles,  and  popular  assembly,  like 
the  Homeric  yet  with  functions  more  definitely  fixed  by  the  force  of 
Minoan  tradition.  The  king's  colacretae  — "  joint-carvers  " —  had 
charge  of  the  perquisites  which  came  to  him  from  sacrifices;  and  in 
time  this  humble  function  developed  into  the  office  of  treasurer. 
The  king  and  his  nobles  in  heavy  armor-rode  to  war  in  chariots;  and 
for  the  defence  of  the  coasts  his  well-to-do  citizens  built  galleys  pro- 
vided with  a  submarine  ram  for  attacking  hostile  ships. •'* 

tion  of  the  Athenians,  our  principal  extant  source;  and  Ephorus  by  Strabo  and  Diodorus. 
Plutarch,  Solon  is  derived  mainly  from  Solon's  Poniis  and  Lrnvs  and  from  .'Xndrotion.  A 
great  amount  of  institutional  matter  may  be  found  in  Pollux  and  otiier  late  antiquarians; 
and  valuable  facts  are  scattered  through  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  all  ancient  literature.  For  the 
literary  sources  see  the  pertinent  chapters  below;  H.  Civ.  ch.  i.  passim;  and  the  various 
histories  of  Greek  literature.' 

2  T^ocal  traditions  of  petty  kingships  and  of  communal  independence;  Th"c.  ii.  15;  Hel- 
lenicus,  in  FHC.  I.  p.  55.  74;  Plut.  Thcs.  32;  Paus.  1.  1-4.  7;  31.  5.  Unification  of  vil- 
lages in  twelve  cities;  Philochorus,  in  FBG.  I.  p.  386.  11  (a  fiction  with  a  kernel  of  his- 
torical truth).  The  presence  of  beehive  tombs  in  various  localities  proves  the  latter  to 
have  been  centres  of  Mycenaean  kingdoms. 

■■!  Thuc.    ii.    15. 

4  Fleusis;   Wilamowitz,   A.u  A.  II.  38  f.   Salamis;   p.   Ill   below. 

5  Medontidae;  IG.  I.  497  (boundary  stone  of  their  estate);  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  3;  Euse- 
bius,    Chron.   87,    175.     Medon,    eponym   of   the   gens,    belongs  to   the   eighth   century   or   to 


104  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

From  kings  for  life  to  decennial  kings,  753-2.  The  transition 
from  monarchy  to  aristocracy  was  gradual;  and  though  no  ancient 
writer  inform's  us,  we  may  be  sure  that  it  was  brought  about  by  the 
council  of  nobles,  who  alone  benefited  by  the  change.  It  must  ac- 
cordingly have  been  this  body  which,  about  the  middle  of  the  eighth 
century,  reduced  the  life  tenure  of  the  royal  office  to  a  single  decade. 
Although  the  incumbent  was  still  termed  king,  the  monarchy  in  fact 
ceased,  the  supreme  power  passing  to  the  council.  This  point  there- 
fore begins  the  period  of  the  aristocracy.'^ 

Aristocracy,  753-2  to  about  650.  As  the  decennial  kings  proved 
incapable  of  efficient  military  leadership,  the  office  of  polemarch  — 
"  war-archon  " —  was  instituted,  probably  to  lead  the  army  in  a  con- 
flict with  Eleusis.  No  long  time  afterward  the  Medontidae  were  de- 
posed, and  the  royal  office  was  thrown  open  to  all  the  nobles.  Then, 
about  700,  the  office  of  archon  was  instituted.  During  the  earlier 
and  less  known  period  of  its  history,  this  magistracy  must  have  been 
vested  with  large  powers;  but  gradually  it  was  deprived  of  them 
till,  in  the  fourth  century,  its  only  civil  function  was  the  care  of 
widows  and  orphans  and  of  their  estates.  King,  polemarch,  and 
archon,  however,  in  addition  to  the  duties  above  mentioned,  per- 
formed extensive  priestly  functions.'' 

Annual  offices,  683-2.  The  thesmothetae.  As  the  decennial 
magistrates  proved  too  strong  and  independent  to  serve  the  interests 
of  the  ruling  power,  all  offices  were  made  annual  in  683-2;  and  at 
the  same  time  the  archon  superseded  the  king  as  head  of  the  state. 
In  this  way  the  government  became  in  form  as  well  as  in  fact  a 
republic.  At  the  same  date,  or  shortly  afterward,  were  instituted 
the  six  thesmothetae,  "  that  they  might  record  the  customary  laws 
and  keep  them  for  the  trial  of  offenders."  They  had  charge  of  all 
public  documents  and  acted  as  judges  in  the  capacity  of  protectors 
of  the  law.  It  was  not  till  the  time  of  Solon  that  the  archon,  king, 
polemarch  and  six  thesmothetae  were  brought  together  in  one  board 
—  that  of  the  nine  archons.* 

slightly  earlier  time,   but  the  ancients  wrongly  placed  him  in  the  eleventh  century.    War- 
ships; p.  39.  , 

6  Euseb.  Chron.  88,  182;  Paus.  iv.  5.  10;   13.  7. 

7  Polemarch;  Arist.  Cojist.  Atlt.  3.  2;  Frag.  381;  Hdt.  viii.  44.  Connection  with  Eleusin- 
ian  war;  Paus.  i.  31.  3.  Archon;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  3,  56.  Religious  functions:  Arist.  op. 
cit.   56-8. 

8  Annual  offices;  Mar.  Par.  32  (Archon  is  now  eponymous);  Euseb.  Chron.  88,  184. 
Earlier  dates,  753-2  and  713-2,  are  but  roughtly  approximate,  but  from  683-2  they  become 
more  accurate.  Thesmothetae;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  3.  4,  59;  Syncell.  399.  21.  They  prob- 
ably began  a  codification  of  civil  usage. —  In  this  volume  Archon,  when  signifying  the 
eponymous  magistrate,  is  capitalized. 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        105 

The  council  of  nobles,  afterward  named  the  council  of  the 
Areopagus.  The  aristocracy  was  now  at  the  summit  of  its  power. 
The  assembly  of  citizens,  which  had  occupied  only  a  third  place  in 
the  government,  fell  into  iiractical  desuetude.  The  elective  power 
resided  in  the  council,  who  "  called  up  men  and  on  its  own  judgment 
assigned  them  according  to  their  qualifications  to  the  several  offices 
for  the  year."  It  supervised  their  administration,  and  watched  rig- 
orously over  the  lives  of  the  citizens,  with  power  to  punish  for  im- 
moral as  well  as  for  lawless  conduct.  The  members  of  this  body  were 
powerful  lords,  recruited  annually  from  those  who  had  worthily  filled 
the  nine  magistracies  described  above. ^ 

Social  classes:  the  eupatrids.  The  privileged  class  were  called 
eupatrids  — "  sons  of  noble  fathers."  They  owned  large  tracts  of 
land,  equipped  themselves  with  heavy  armor,  and  constituted  the 
effective  military  force.  They  had  recently  discarded  the  chariot 
and  had  adopted  the  custom  of  riding  to  war  on  horseback.  Arriving 
on  the  battlefield,  they  dismounted  to  engage  in  combat.  There  were, 
too,  a  few  hoplites  (heavy  infantry)  unprovided  with  horses.  In 
addition  to  military  and  administrative  services,  the  eupatrids  filled 
the  priesthoods,  which  assured  them  rich  livings  as  well  as  a  pow- 
erful instrument  for  governing  the  commons. 

The  commons:  georgi  and  demiurgi.  Below  the  eupatrids  were 
the  georgi,  farmers,  who  originally  owned  the  lands  they  tilled,  but 
who  in  the  seventh  century  were  mortgaging  their  estates,  and  falling 
into  slavery  for  debt.  Still  lower  in  the  social  scale  were  the  demi- 
urgi, skilled  workmen.  Their  numbers  during  the  seventh  century 
were  but  slowly  increasing  in  Attica,  which  lagged  behind  Corinth, 
Aegina,  and  other  neighbors  in  industry!^" 

Family  and  gens  (genos).  Phratry  and  tribe.  The  unit  of 
society  was  the  family,  which  as  elsewhere  in  Greece  was  monogamic. 
Whatever  its  rank,  the  family  worshipped  "  ancestral  "  Apollo  and 
"  household  "  Zeus.  The  nobles  formed  larger  associations  of  kins- 
men known  as  gentes,  bound  together  for  the  worship  of  a  reputed 
ancestor,  for  social  intercourse  and  mutual  helpfulness.     The  demi- 

!>  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  8.  2,  quotation  referring  to  the  period  now  under  consideration. 
Probably  (1)  the  king  called  to  his  council  the  most  powerful  men  in  the  state,  as  in  the 
Homeric  world,  (2)  these  nobles  acquired  a  hereditary  right  to  their  seats,  (3)  gradually 
the  retiring  magistrates  obtained  admission.  Supervision  of  magistrates  and  of  citizens; 
Ari.st,  op.  cit.  3.  6;  Isoc.  Areop.  37.  46;  Philochorus,  in  Athen.  iv.  19.  In  this  period  the 
censorship  of  morals  was  esteemed  a  most  important  function  of  government. 

10  Arist.  Frag.  385;  Plut.  Thcs.  25;  Dion.  Hal.  ii.  8;  Pollux  viii.  Ill;  cf.  Plato,  Crit.  110 
c.   Decline  of  commons;   Arist.   Const.   Ath.   2.    12  (poem  of  Solon). 


106  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

urgi  had  their  trades  unions  patterned  after  the  gentes.  All  three 
social  classes  belonged  promiscuously  to  the  phratries — "brother- 
hoods "  —  which  were  groups  of  families  assumed  to  be  related  in 
blood.  The  phratry  had  its  annual  reunion  in  the  autumn,  at  the 
feast  of  the  Apaturia  —  of  the  "  all-fathers,"  evidently  the  spirits  of 
the  dead.  On  this  occasion  the  members  worshipped  the  Zeus  and 
Athena  of  their  phratry,  introduced  the  young  children  to  the  asso- 
ciation, and  celebrated  the  marriages  of  their  members..  Several 
phratries  composed  a  tribe  and  four  tribes  made  up  the  state.^^ 

II.     The  Timocracy  or  the  Heavy  Infantry 
About  650-594 

The  phalanx  and  the  new  territorial  organization.     For  the 

overthrow  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  establishment  of  a  more  liberal 
form  of  government  the  ground  was  prepared  in  the  growing  need 
of  an  improved  military  system.  This  requirement  was  met  by  the 
introduction  of  the  Dorian  phalanx.  As  the  eupatrids  were  too  few 
to  constitute  a  phalanx,  they  had  to  recruit  the  heavy  infantry  from 
the  common  landowners  whose  income  would  enable  them  to  equip 
themselves  with  a  panoply.  This  undertaking  was  made  possible  for 
Athens  by  the  rise  of  industrial  cities  in  her  neighborhood,  which  di- 
minished the  cost  of  armor.  A  census  was  introduced  to  determine 
who  were  to  be  thus  liable.  In  order  to  ascertain  where  every  man 
lived  and  what  property  he  owned,  a  thorough  territorial  organization 
was  necessary.  The  earlier  organization,  of  which  we  know  little, 
had  to  be  adjusted  to  the  enlarged  territory.  Attica  was  accordingly 
divided  into  four  districts  named  after  the  four  tribes.  Each  tribal 
district  comprised  three  smaller  areas  known  as  "  thirds  " —  trittyes  — 
which  were  subdivided  each  into  four  naval  townships  —  naucraries. 
The  four  census  classes.  Mainly  with  a  view  to  military  serv- 
ice the  people  were  divided  into  four  classes.  The  pentacosiomedimni, 
whose  estates  free  from  encumbrance  yielded  annually  at  least  five 
hundred  Aeginetan  medimni  of  grain,  formed  the  highest  class.  We 
may  assume  that  they  included  many  eupatrids  and  a  few  commons. 
They  held  the  higher  offices  and  commands  and  evidently  furnished 
for  military  service  each  two  horses,  one  for  himself  and  the  other 

11  Family  and  cult;  Aisf.  Polit.  i.  2-7,  1252  ff . ;  Const.  Ath.  55.  15;  Frag.  381.  Phratry; 
Arist.  Cnnst.  Ath.  2\.  6;  Frag.  385;  H.  Civ.  no.  144.  Four  tribes;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  8.  3; 
Frag.  385. 


PNYX 


AREOPAGUS 


108  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

for  his  squire.  The  next  lower  class  comprised  the  simple  knights 
(hippeis),  who  furnished  each  a  single  horse  with  necessary  equip- 
ment, and  whose  obligations  and  privileges  were  in  general  inferior 
to  those  of  the  pentacosiomedimni.  The  distinctive  feature  of  the 
system,  however,  is  to  be  found  in  the  third  class,  zeugitae  — "  yoked 
men" — members  of  the  phalanx  of  heavy  infantry.  The  fourth 
class  comprised  the  poorer  folk,  employed  only  as  light  troops,  as 
squires  for  the  knights,  or  in  the  case  of  the  very  poorest,  totally  ex- 
empt from  military  duty.  All  the  classes  were  undoubtedly  defined 
in  terms  of  produce  from  their  estates,  although  for  this  period  we 
cannot  ascertain  these  definitions.  The  phalanx,  commanded  by  the 
polemarch,  comprised  four  tribal  regiments  each  under  a  general. 
These  institutions  were  created  probably  about  the  middle  of  the 
seventh  century. 

The  assembly  (ecclesia),  the  council  of  Four  Hundred  and  One, 
and  of  the  Areopagus.  The  reform  of  the  army  bore  immediate 
political  fruit.  On  the  principle  prevailing  in  Hellas,  that  the  mili- 
tary class  determined  the  character  of  the  government,  the  .heavy 
infantry  constituted  of  themselves  an  assembly  for  the  election  of 
magistrates  and  for  the  transaction  of  other  imoortant  business.  In 
this  way  the  aristocratic  council  lost  its  appointive  power.  In  con- 
nection with  the  revival  and  reconstitution  of  the  assembly  was 
created  a  new  council  of  four  hundred  and  one  members,  which 
represented  the  tribes  and  most  probably  the  naucraries.  Beyond  its 
function  of  preparing  bills  to  be  offered  to  the  assembly,  we  may 
infer  that  it  possessed  some  administrative  duties.  Now  for  the  first 
time  it  became  necessary  to  distinguish  the  old  aristocratic  council  by 
name.  Henceforth  it  was  known  as  the  Council  of  the  Areopagus,  be- 
cause it  convened  on  that  hill  for  the  transaction  of  certain  judicial 
business  to  be  explained  below.  The  Areopagites,  retaining  large 
powers  of  supervision,  were  still  the  chief  governing  institution.  As 
political  privileges  were  graded  on  the  basis  of  property,  and  the 
franchise  limited  to  those  who  could  furnish  a  panoply,  we  may  de- 
scribe the  constitution  as  a  "  timocracy  of  the  heavy  infantry."  ^' 

12  An  outline  of  the  timocratic  constitution  may  be  found  in  Arist.  Const.  At  It.  4.  This 
passage  has  been  thought,  perhaps  without  cogent  reason,  historically  worthless  (see  H. 
Civ.  no,  27.) ;  but  the  existence  of  the  timocracy  before  Solon  rests  upon  other  evidence. 
Naucraries  before  Solon;  Ifdt.  v.  71.  Assembly';  Thuc.  i.  126;  .Arist.  op.  cit.  5.  2;  Polit. 
ji.  12.  ,V  1274  a.  As  to  the  four  census  classes,  the  word  pentacosiomedimni  must  have 
been  formed  when  the  niedimnns.  a  dry  measure,  was  used  in  the  assessment,  hence  before 
Solon.  Generals;  Strabo  xiii.  1.  3?;  Pl'ut.  Sol.  11;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  22.  3.  The  origin  of 
the   council   of    Four   Hundred   and    One    is   closely   connected   with   the    rise    of   the    as- 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        109 

Cylon's  coup  d'etat,  perhaps  —  632  or  628.  No  long  time  after 
the  adoption  of  these  reforms,  in  a  period  of  political  and  social 
unrest,  a  powerful  noble  named  Cylon  seized  the  Acropolis  and  at- 
tempted to  make  himself  tyrant.  But  the  heavy  infantry,  gathering 
from  the  country,  besieged  the  conspirators  in  the  citadel.  When 
their  provisions  were  exhausted,  Cylon  stole  through  the  besieging 
lines;  his  starving  followers  took  refuge  at  the  great  altar  of  Athena 
on  the  Acropolis.  Hereupon  the  chiefs  —  prytaneis  —  of  the  nau- 
craries  promised  the  suppliants  their  lives  if  they  would  submit  to 
trial.  They  agreed;  yet  not  having  full  conlidence  in  the  promise, 
they  tied  a  thread  to  Athena's  image,  and  holding  one  end  of  it,  went 
down  to  the  tribunal.  When  they  came  near  the  shrine  of  the  Furies, 
the  cleft  at  the  east  end  of  the  Areopagus,  the  thread  by  which  the 
gpddess  gave  them  her  protection  broke;  and  then  the  Archon  Mega- 
cles  and  his  supporters  stoned  and  butchered  them,  permitting  only  a 
few  to  escape.  Megacles  belonged  to  the  powerful  gens  of  the  Alcme- 
onidae,  whom  the  state  dared  not  punish  for  the  crime.  In  popular 
belief  this  sacrilege  brought  the  curse  of  impiety  upon  the  entire 
gens.^'* 

Draco's  codification  of  the  criminal  law,  621.  It  may  well  be 
that  this  event  suggested  a  clearer  formulation  of  the  criminal  law  and 
a  reorganization  of  the  courts.  In  621  accordingly  Draco  was  com- 
missioned as  thesmothete  with  extraordinary  power  to  codify  the 
criminal  law,  which  thus  far  had  remained  an  oral  tradition. 

Homicide.  The  usages  of  Attic  law,  as  we  know  it  in  later  time, 
prove  that  in  the  remote  past  the  Athenians,  like  the  Homeric  Greeks, 
were  accustomed  to  the  blood  feud  and  to  the  acceptance  of  compensa- 
tion for  injury  and  homicide.  There  existed  further  in  Attica, 
probably  as  a  Minoan  inheritance,  sanctuaries  to  which  the  slayer 
might  flee  while  making  terms  with  the  kinsmen  of  the  slain.  Tak- 
ing advantage  of  this  condition,  Draco  made  use  of  these  sanctuaries 
as  places  of  trial  for  the  various  classes  of  homicide.  Accusations 
were  still  to  be  brought  by  the  near  kin,  assisted  by  the  phratry;  but 
henceforth  the  state  alone  had  power  over  the  accused,  to  punish  or 
acquit.  All  prosecutions  came  before  the  king,  who  determined  the 
appropriate  court  for  the  trial  according  to  the  nature  of  the  offence. 

seinbly.     There  is  no  space  in  tliis  volume  for  a  discussion  of  the  problems  relating  to  the 
suspected  passage  in  Aristotle  mentioned  above. 

isHdt.  V.  71;  Thuc.  i.  126;  Plut.  Sol.  12.    There  is  no  necessary  conflict  between  Herod- 
otus and  Thucydides. 


no  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  idea,  not  found  in  Homer,  that  homicide  brought  pollution  upon 
the  doer  survived  in  Attica  from  the  Minoan  Age.  The  trial  took 
place,  accordingly,  near  the  sanctuary,  under  the  open  sky,  that  no 
pollution  might  come  to  the  accuser  from  being  under  the  same  roof 
with  the  accused. 

Courts  for  the  trial  of  homicide.  Cases  of  wilful  murder  came 
before  the  old  aristocratic  council  sitting  on  the  Areopagus.  The 
punishment  was  death  with  confiscation  of  property.  Another  court 
was  that  of  the  ephetae,  who  were  nobles  above  fifty  years  of  age. 
They  sat  near  the  Palladion,  a  shrine  of  Pallas  Athena  at  Phaleron, 
for  the  trial  of  accidental  homicide.  The  penalty  in  this  case  was 
temporary  exile  followed  by  purification  from  the  religious  guilt. 
At  the  Delphinion,  a  shrine  of  Apollo  and  Artemis  near  Athens,  the 
ephetae  tried  any  who  confessed  to  homicide  but  claimed  that  he 
did  the  deed  in  self-defence  or  on  other  justifiable  ground.  There 
was  no  penalty,  but  at  least  in  some  cases  purification  was  required. 
If  a  man  while  in  exile  under  sentence  of  the  ephetae  was  accused  of 
wilful  murder,  he  was  liable  to  trial  by  the  same  court  at  the  Phre- 
atto,  a  place  on  the  coast.  The  accused  was  not  permitted  to 
pollute  the  land  by  his  presence,  but  pleaded  his  cause  in  a  boat 
moored  near  the  shore,  while  the  ephetae  heard  him  from  the  beach. 
The  penalty  was  the  usual  one  for  wilful  murder.  A  still  stranger 
religious  idea  is  illustrated  by  the  court  consisting  of  k-ing  and  tribe- 
kings,  sitting  at  the  prytaneion  —  town-hall  —  within  the  city. 
Here  were  tried  cases  in  which  the  doer  was  unknown,  also  the  kill- 
ing of  a  person  by  a  falling  obiect.  If  convicted,  the  object  that 
wrought  the  deed  was  solemnly  carried,  as  a  noxious  thing,  beyond 
the  border  of  the  country.^* 

Character  of  the  Draconian  laws.  In  the  definite  provision  for 
mitigating  circumstances  in  homicide,  and  in  the  total  suppression  of 
the  blood  feud  and  compensations  by  the  establishment  of  courts  with 
full  competence  to  try  and  punish  offenders,  Draco  contributed  vastly 
to  the  benevolence  of  law  and  to  domestic  security  and  peace.  The 
Athenians  of  after  time  looked  back  to  him  with  great  reverence  and 
thought  of  his  ordinances  as  the  product  of  a  wisdom  higher  than 
that  of  man.  "  Whoever  made  them  originally,  whether  heroes  or 
gods,  did  not  oppress  the  unfortunate,  but  humanely  alleviated  their 

14  H.   Civ.   no.   77  (IC.  I.   no.   61,   revised  law  of  Draco);  .extant  Orations  of   Antiphon: 
Demosthenes,  Macartatos;  Aristocratcs ;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  57;  Pollux,  viii.  90,  117-20. 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY         111 

miseries,  so  far  as  they  could  with  right. ^^  His  reputation  suffered 
but  slightly  by  the  discovery,  in  the  fourth  century,  of  his  law  of 
theft,  then  long  obsolete,  which  fixed  the  penalty  of  death  for  steal- 
ing a  cabbage  or  an  apple.  The  people  were  starving;  and  in  keeping 
with  the  severity  of  the  times  this  penalty  had  been  retained  in  the 
code  in  the  interest  of  the  landowners."  ^'^ 

Trial  of  the  Alcmeonidae.  After  the  adoption  of  these  measures 
the  faction  of  Cylon,  recovering  strength,  brought  the  Alcmeonidae  to 
trial  for  sacrilege  before  a  court  of  three  hundred  nobles.  Although 
the  actual  perpetrators  of  the  crime  were  dead,  a  verdict  of  guilty 
was  found.  In  punishment  the  remains  of  the  dead  were  cast  beyond 
the  border  and  the  gens  was  condemned  to  perpetual  exile.  As  the 
whole  city  seemed  polluted  by  the  rank  impiety,  Epimenides,  a  Cre- 
tan, was  called  in  to  purify  the  community.^^ 

III.     The  Reforms  of  Solon 
594 

Oppression  and  revolt  of  the  commons.  Solon.  In  an  earlier 
chapter  we  touched  on  the  economic  decline  of  the  Attic  peasantry  and 
noticed  the  fact  that  most  of  their  farms  were  mortgaged  to  the  rich, 
and  that  many  freemen  were  in  slavery  for  debt.  Draco's  reforms 
did  not  touch  the  economic  condition,  which  daily  became  more 
insupportable,  or  check  the  magistrates  in  their  career  of  embezzle- 
ment, plunder  and  judicial  oppression.  The  newly  constituted  as- 
sembly and  the  phalanx,  however,  served  as  the  nucleus  of  a  popular 
organization.  In  the  spirit  of  freemen  the  masses  revolted  against 
their  oppressors.  Civil  war  broke  out,  and  the  blood  of  citizens  was 
spilled.  At  this  crisis  Solon  came  forward  as  a  mediator.  He  was 
a  man  of  the  highest  nobility,  though  of  moderate  fortune,  a  mer- 
chant, a  poet  and  sage.  Under  his  military  leadership  and  inspired 
by  his  martial  verse,  the  Athenians  had  wrested  Salamis  from  the 
Megarians.^^  Thus  he  had  won  a  reputation  which  strengthened 
his  appeal  to  the  two  parties  to  lay  aside  their  differences.  They 
joined  in  electing  him  archon  and  legislator,  thesmothete,  for  594, 
with  absolute  power.^" 

ir>  Dem.  Aristocr.  70. 

iflArist.  Polit.  ii.  12.   13,  1274  b;  Demades,  in  Plut.  Sol.  17. 

i7  Arist.  Const.  Ath.   1;  Plut.  Sol.   12;   Plato,  Laws,  i.  642;   iii.  677. 

18  P.    103.     Decree    for    the    regulation    of    Salaminian    affairs,    570-60;    Hicks    and    Hill, 
no.    4. 

19  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  5;  Plut.  Sol.   14. 


112  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Abolition  of  securities.  On  entering  office  Solon  proclaimed  an 
abolition  of  all  securities  on  land  and  person.  Of  this  work  he  him- 
self says:  "  In  the  just  fulness  of  time  the  mighty  mother  of  the 
Olympian  gods,  even  Black  Earth  most  excellent,  will  bear  me  wit- 
ness that  I  removed  the  mortgage  pillars  which  stood  in  many  places 
—  she  who  was  formerly  in  slavery  but  now  set  free,  To  Athens,  our 
country  divinely  founded,  I  restored  many  men  who  had  been  sold, 
one  illegally,  another  under  the  law;  some  whom  hard  necessity  had 
forced  into  exile,  who  in  their  many  wanderings  had  forgot  the 
Attic  tongue.  Others  held  here  in  unseemly  slavery,  and  trembling 
under  their  masters'  caprices,  I  set  free.  This  I  did  by  my  power, 
uniting  force  with  justice."  -° 

The  future  safety  of  the  commons.  To  secure  the  liberty  of 
the  commons  for  the  future,  he  prohibited  the  mortgaging  of  per- 
sons. For  curbing  the  avarice  of  the  rich  he  limited  by  law  the 
amount  of  land  which  the  individual  might  acquire.  As  the  large 
landowners  were  shipping  their  grain  to  the  thriving  industrial  cen- 
tres in  the  neighborhood  of  Attica,  thus  reducing  the  masses  to  starva- 
tion, Solon  forbade  the  exportation  of  all  products  of  the  soil  except 
olive  oil,  of  which  there  was  a  surplus.  More  stimulating  were  his 
laws  for  the  encouragement  of  industry.  He  attached  a  heavy  fine 
to  idleness  and  compelled  every  man  to  teach  his  son  a  trade.  As 
there  were  too  few  artisans  to  serve  as  models  for  the  rest,  and  make 
a  beginning  of  industry,  he  offered  the  citizenship  to  skilled  workmen 
of  other  countries  on  the  condition  of  their  settling  permanently  in 
Attica.  In  the  same  liberal  spirit  citizens  were  permitted  to  marry 
non-Athenian  women,  and  the  children  of  such  unions  had  full  social 
and  political  rights.  Another  law,  afterward  adopted  by  the  Romans, 
encouraged  the  formation  of  corporations  for  the  transactions  of  vari- 
ous kinds  of  business.^^ 

Coinage.  A  further  impetus  was  given  to  commerce  by  the  adop- 
tion of  a  native  coinage.  The  Euboic  standard  was  chosen  for  the 
purpose,  undoubtedly  to  facilitate  trade  with  Chalcis  and  Eretria  and 
their  many  colonies.^^ 

Family^  law.     In  his  reform  of  family  law  Solon  aimed  to  free 

20  Poem  of  Solon,  in  Arist.  Const.  Atli.  12;  cf.  6;  Plut.  Sol.  15.  There  is  no  evidence  of 
a  complete  abolition  of  debts;  and  against  it  is  Androtion,  FHG.  I.   p.  375.  40. 

21  Arist.  Co7ist.  A  til.  6,  9;  Polit.  ii.  7.  6,  1266  b  (limitation  on  size  of  estates,  unneces- 
sarily doubted  by  some  scholars);  Plut.  Sol.  13,  15,  17,  22-4;  Hdt.  vi.  130  (marriage  with 
alien);  Digest  xlvii.  22.  4  (law  as  to  corporations). 

22  P.  59  f.  cf.  Gardiner,  Hist,  of  Ancient  Coinage,  143  ff. 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        113 

the  individual  from  kin  and  gens  with  the  object  of  attaching  him  more 
closely  to  the  state.  His  enactment  that  anyone  who  wished  might  go 
to  law  in  defence  of  an  iniured  person  tended  to  substitute  neigh- 
borly friendliness  and  governmental  protection  in  place  of  the  old  tie 
of  blood.  Heretofore  wHls  were  unknown,  and  in  lack  of  children  the 
estate  passed  to  the  nearest  of  kin.  Solon,  however,  enacted  that  in 
case  a  man  had  no  children  he  might  will  his  estate  to  whomsoever 
he  pleased.  This  law  freed  property  from  the  control  of  the  kin  and 
granted  the  individual  more  complete  possession  of  his  own.  These 
regulations  gave  freer  scope  to  the  individuality  of  the  citizens,  and 
placed  them  in  a  better  position  to  serve  the  state.-'* 

Criminal  law.  In  his  revision  of  the  criminal  code  of  Draco  he 
lightened  excessive  penalties  but  left  the  laws  of  homicide  substan- 
tially untouched.  Recognizing  the  harshness  of  previous  judicial 
decisions,  he  decreed  an  amnesty  to  all  who  were  in  exile  excepting 
those  condemned  for  homicide  or  attempted  tyranny.  Under  this 
edict  the  Alcmeonidae  returned  to  their  homes.-* 

The  four  census  classes,  and  magistrates.  Among  his  first  con- 
stitutional measures  was  a  revision  of  the  definitions  of  the  four  census 
classes.  For  the  medimnus  he  substituted  the  lighter  metron  — 
wet  and  dry-measure,  so  as  to  include  in  the  reckoning  oil  and  wine 
as  well  as  grain.  A  pentacosiomedimnus  was  accordingly  one  who 
produced  500  measures  wet  and  dry,  from  his  estate;  a  hippeus  300- 
500;  a  zeugite  200-300;  a  thete  less  than  200.  Through  this  reform 
many  must  have  been  advanced  from  lower  to  higher  ratings.  The 
treasurers  were  to  be  drawn  exclusively  from  the  highest  class,  the 
archons  from  the  first  and  second;  the  zeugites  were  eligible  to  the 
council  of  four  hundred;  and  the  thetes,  disbarred  from  all  indi- 
vidual offices  and  boards,  were  now  admitted  to  the  assembly  (eccle- 
sia).-^ 

Council  of  Four  Hundred,  assembly,  and  supreme  court.  The 
Council  of  Four  Hundred  and  One,  dropping  the  odd  number  seems 
to  have  remained  in  other  respects  the  same.  The  assembly  was 
made  more  democratic  by  the  admission  of  the  thetes.  Solon  insti- 
tuted a  supreme  court,  the  heliaea,  to  which  men  above  thirty  years 
from  all  four  census  classes  were  eligible.     Its  function  was  to  re- 

23  Plut.  Sol.   18,   21;    Arist.   Const.   Atli.  9. 

24  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  7.   1;  Plut.  Sol.  17,  19. 

25  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  7;  Polit.  ii.  12,  1273  b;  Plut.  Sol.  18;  Pollux  viii.  130,  Aeginetan 
medimnus,  formerly  used,  74  qt. ;  Euboic  metretes,  now  adopted,  39  qt.  That  the  archons 
were  taken  from  the  highest  class  only  (Plut.  Arist.  1)  is  evidently  a  mistake. 


114  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ceive  appeals  from  the  judicial  decisions  of  the  archons,  and  to  try 
the  retiring  magistrates  for  misconduct  in  office,  in  case  any  one  ac- 
cused them.-" 

Constitutional  balance.  The  widening  of  the  franchise  to  include 
the  thetes  and  the  establishment  of  the  heliaea  made  the  government 
more  popular.  In  the  absence  of  pay  for  public  service,  however,  the 
citizens  could  rarely  attend  the  assembly  in  large  numbers,  and  few 
could  sit  in  the  heliaea.  These  bodies  were  therefore  practically 
controlled  by  the  well-to-do.^'  The  high  property  qualifications  of 
the  magistrates  and  the  supervisory  power  of  the  Areopagites,  left 
unimpaired  by  Solon,  were  strong  aristocratic  elements.  We  have 
from  himself  an  estimate  of  his  constitutional  reform:  "  I  gave  the 
commons  as  much  power  as  sufficed,  neither  detracting  from  their 
honor  nor  adding  thereto.  Those  who  possessed  might  and  were  il- 
lustrious in  wealth,  for  them  I  planned  that  they  should  suffer  naught 
unseemly."  In  another  place  he  says,  "  Thus  the  commons  would 
best  follow  their  leaders,  neither  given  too  much  rein  nor  yet  op- 
pressed." ^^  The  rich  and  noble  were  to  fill  the  offices,  the  commons 
were  to  have  only  enough  power  to  check  them  and  preserve  their  own 
liberty. 

IV.     The  TYRANN-i 

560'-5ro 

Factional  strife,  593-560.  Few  were  satisfied  with  Solon's  re- 
forms. The  Shoremen,  containing  many  fishermen  and  traders,  were 
inclined  to  abide  by  his  arrangements;  but  men  of  the  Plain,  eupat- 
rids  with  large  estates,  were  irritated  by  his  concessions  to  the  poor, 
whereas  the  inhabitants  of  the  Hills,  including  the  turbulent  shep- 
herds, were  disappointed  in  their  expectation  of  a  redistribution  of 
property.     These  factions  fiercely  contended  with  one  another."^ 

Peisistratus.  In  time  the  leadership  of  the  Hills  fell  to  Peisis- 
tratus,  a  distant  relative  of  Solon.  Smooth  of  speech,  courteous  in 
bearing,  and  master  of  political  trickery,  he  enjoyed  too  a  brilliant 
military  reputation  gained  in  a  war  with  Megara  (about  570-65).^° 
In  the  belief  that  his  political  adversaries  sought  his  life  the  assembly 

2ti  Arist.  Const.  7,  8,  9;  Polit.  ii.   12.  3-5,  1274  a;  cf.   1281  b;  Plut.  Sol.  18,  19;  Lysias  x 
16. 

27  Cf.   Isoc.   Areop.  24  f. 

28  Poems  of  Solon,   in  Arist.   Const.  Ath.   12. 

29  Arist.  Const.  Ath.   U,  13;  Plut.  Sol.   13,  29;  Hdt.  i.  59. 

30  .\rist.   op.  cit.   14.   1 ;   16.  8  f . ;   Plut.  Sol.  29. 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        115 

voted  him  a  personal  guard,  with  which  he  seized  the  Acropolis  in 
500,  and  made  himself  tyrant.  Twice  a  combination  of  the  two  rival 
factions  caused  his  retirement  into  exile;  but  finally  gaining  com- 
plete supremacy,  he  maintained  it  with  the  aid  of  mercenaries.^^ 

His  tyranny,  560-510.  Peisistratus  is  an  excellent  type  of  the 
statesman  despot.  His  hand  lay  heavily  on  the  nobles  alone.  Those 
of  the  class  who  were  too  independent  of  spirit  or  too  ambitious  to 
submit  were  forced  into  exile.  There  are  indications  that  he  con- 
fiscated the  estates  of  such  persons  and  divided  them  in  small  farms 
among  the  poor.  To  the  needy  country  people  he  gave  seeds  and 
work-animals  for  stocking  their  farms.  The  number  of  cultivators 
he  greatly  increased  by  such  encouragements  and  by  the  expulsion  of 
idlers  from  the  city.  Thus  supplementing  Solon's  emancipation  of 
debtor  slaves,  Peisistratus  founded  a  numerous,  thriving  agricultural 
class,  which  remained  prosperous  long  after  his  family  had  ceased 
to  rule.  His  tax  of  one-tenth,  afterward  reduced  to  a  twentieth,  on 
the  produce  was  burdensome  only  to  the  most  sterile  farms.  "  See- 
ing (on  the  slope  of  Hymettus)  a  certain  man  digging  and  working 
among  the  rocks  with  a  stake,  he  bade  his  servant  ask  what  was 
produced  in  the  place.  The  other  replied,  '  Only  aches  and  pains, 
and  of  these  aches  and  pains,  Peisistratus  must  have  his  tenth.'  The 
man  answered  without  knowing  him;  but  Peisistratus,  pleased  with 
his  candor  and  his  love  of  work,  made  him  exempt  from  all  taxes."  ^^ 

Commerce ;  exports.  From  all  that  we  can  learn,  his  policy  must 
have  been  rural  rather  than  industrial.  A  wide  exportation  of  wine, 
olive  oil.  and  toilet  ointments  is  proved  by  the  great  number  of  Attic 
vases  of  this  period  found  in  various  parts  of  the  ancient  world 
from  Etruria  to  Egypt.  Asia  Minor  and  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 
They  are  of  the  black-figured  type  —  characterized  by  paintings  in 
black  glaze  on  a  red  background,  produced  during  the  rule  of  Peisis- 
tratus. Shortly  after  the  accession  of  Hippias  this  class  gave  way 
to  the  more  highly  developed  red-figured  style,  which  too  was  widely 
diffused  by  trade.'"  Potters'  shops,  accordingly,  were  increasing  in 
size  and  in  the  number  of  hands  employed. 

Relations  with  other  states.     Commerce  must  in  fact  have  de- 

31  Arist.   Const.   Ath.    14  f.,   18;   Hdt.    i.   59-64;   Diod.   ix.   20;    Diog.    Laert.   Sol.   3-6.     The 
dates  of  these  exiles  are  hopeless. 

32  Aelian,  V.  H.,  ix.  25;  Arist.  Ath.  Const.  16;  Thuc.  vi.  54.  5;  Diod.  ix.  37;  Suidas,  j.  v. 
Kai  (7<f>aKeKoi,  P-  189. 

S3  Walters,   Anc.   Pottery,  I.   368  ff.     These  two  color  schemes  were  current   in  the   Early 
Minoan  Age;  p.  9. 


116  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

rived  great  encouragement  from  the  treaty  relations  which  Peisistratus 
established  with  many  states  from  Thessaly  to  Lacedaemon;  and  the 
peace  thus  guaranteed  was  an  additional  basis  of  prosperity.  The 
colony  of  Sigeum  on  the  Hellespont  he  founded,  or  at  least  reen- 
forced,  and  appointed  a  son  to  govern  it.  Under  the  tyrant's  patron- 
age Miltiades,  an  eminent  eupatrid,  conducted  a  colony  to  the  Cher- 
sonese on  the  European  side  of  the  Hellespont.  Both  settlements 
remained  dependencies  of  Athens.  In  brief  it  is  not  too  much  to  re- 
gard Peisistratus  as  the  creator  of  Athenian  diplomacy  and  of  a 
place  of  dignity  and  influence  for  his  city  among  the  states  of 
HellasT^" 

Enforcement  of  Solon's  laws.  At  home  he  enforced  the  existing 
laws  and  constitution,  taking  care  only  to  secure  by  his  control  of 
the  political  machinery  the  election  of  kinsmen  or  partisans  to  the 
chief  offices.  The  masses  were  attached  to  him  by  his  benefits  to 
them  and  many  of  the  nobles  by  the  social  attractions  of  his  court. ^^ 

Hippias,  527-510,  and  Hipparchus.  When  Peisistratus  died  of 
old  age  in  527,  his  sons  Hippias  and  Hipparchus  continued  his 
policy.  The  former,  as  the  elder  and  as  a  man  of  statesmanlike 
characterj_managed  political  affairs,  while  the  more  cultured  brother 
attended  to  the  erectiqnof  public  works,  and  acted  as  patron  of  lit- 
erature and  art.'"'*' 

Public  works.  The  most  useful  public  works  of  the  Peisistratidae, 
as  the  dynasty  is  termed,  were  a  subterranean  aqueduct,  which  brought 
a  supply  of  fresh  water  to  the  cityTrom  the  upper  valley  of  the  Ilis- 
sus,  and  a  system  of  roads  which  radiated  through  Attica  from  the 
altar  of  the  Twelve  Gods  in  the  market-place.  Their  extensive  build- 
ing of  temples,  their  enlargement  of  religious  festivals  by  the  addition 
of  new  features,  their  patronage  of  artists  and  poets,  with  the  general 
effect  of  advancing  the  social  happiness,  the  taste,  and  intelligence  of 
the  citizens,  will  be  touched  upon  in  the  following  chapter.^'' 

Harsher  tyranny,  514-510.  An  epoch  was  made  in  the  character 
of  the  tyranny  by  the  assassination  of  Hipparchus  in  514.  The  per- 
petrators of  the  deed  were  two  young  nobles,  Harmodius  and  Aristo- 
geiton,  whose  motive  in  stirring  up  a  conspiracy  against  the  tyrants 

.34  11(11.  i.  61,  95;  V.  63,  94  f. ;  vi.  34-40;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  15,  17,  19;  Strabo  xiii.   1.  38; 
Diog.   Laert.  i.  74. 

3.5  Arist.    Const.   Ath.    16. 

36  Arist.   Const.  Ath.   17  f . ;  Thuc.   i.  20;   vi.  5S.    / 

37  Thuc.  vi.  54;  Hdt.  ii.  7;  Plato,  Hippias,  228  tt;  IG.  I.  522;  Judeich,  186  f. ;   Gardner, 
Anc.  Athens,  26-8.  "     '        • 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        117 

was  an  insult  offered  them  by  Hipparchus  in  an  affair  of  love. 
The  i)lot  failed.  Hippias  escaped,  and  the  assassins  with  several 
accomplices  were  put  to  death.  Throughout  Athenian  history  the 
murderers  of  Hipparchus  were  celebrated  in  song  as  tyrannicides,  and 
their  descendants  were  decreed  special  privileges  forever.  Far  from 
overthrowing  the  tyranny,  however,  their  conspiracy  served  to  change 
good  to  bad.  Hippias  now  became  suspicious  and  harsh,  a  tyrant  in 
the  unfavorable  sense  of  the  word.^^ 

The  downfall  of  tyranny,  510.  To  the  emigrant  nobles  these 
conditions  offered  a  favorable  opportunity  to  attempt  a  return.  Their 
leaders  were  the  Alcmeonidae,  who  had  won  the  favor  of  the  Delphic 
Apollo  by  their  munificent  rebuilding  of  his  temple  after  its  destruc- 
tion by  fire.  By  means  of  the  oracle  accordingly  they  were  able  to 
win  the  Lacedaemonians  to  their  aid.  Whenever  the  authorities  at 
Sparta  sent  to  consult  it,  the  answer  always 'was,  "Athens  must  be 
set  free."  At  this  time  the  Peloponnesian  League  reached  the  borders 
of  Attica;  and  the  command  of  Apollo  was  strengthened  by  Lace- 
daemonian ambition.  With  a  force  of  Peloponnesians  King  Cleo- 
menes  of  Sparta  joined  the  Alcmeonidae  and  their  faction  in  besieg- 
ing Hippias  in  the  Acropolis.  The  children  of  the  besieged  were 
taken  in  an  attempt  to  steal  through  the  lines.  To  save  them,  Hip- 
pias surrendered  on  condition  of  retiring  from  the  country.  In  this 
way  the  tyranny  came  to  an  end  in  510.^^ 

V.     The  Establishment  of  Democracy 
508-501 

A  factional  oligarchy,  510,  509.  The  downfall  of  Hippias  was 
a  victory  for  the  emigrant  nobles,  who  on  their  return  began  to  rule  in 
lordly  style.  Revising  the  citizen  lists,  they  struck  off  the  names  of 
a  multitude  whose  ancestors  had  been  enrolled  by  Solon  and  Peisistra- 
tus.  Their  object  was  not  only  to  secure  political  control  but  to  re- 
cover their  confiscated  estates.  Opposition  to  Cleisthenes,  as  head  of 
the  nobles  and  their  adherents,  was  made  by  Isagoras,  a  friend  of 
Hippias.  The  struggle  between  the  two  men  for  supremacy  was 
carried  on  in  the  political  clubs  without  the  cooperation  of  the  people. 
The  election  of  Isagoras  to  the  archonship  for  503  proved  his  superior 

S8  Hdt.  V.  55-7,  62;  Thuc.  i.  20;  vi.  S^-Q;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  18  f.  Skolion  of  Callistratos, 
H.  Civ.   no.  52. 

39  Rebuilding  of  the  Delphic  temple;  Hdt.  i.  50;  ii.  ISO;  v.  62;  Philochonus.  in  FHG.  I. 
p.  395.  70;  Paus.  x.  5.  13;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  19.  4.  End  of  the  tvrannv;  Hdt.  v.  63-5; 
Thuc.  vi.  59;   Arist.  Const.  Ath.   19;   Frag.  395;   Aristoph.  Lysistr.   1150  ff. 


118  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

strength.  Thereupon  Cleisthenes,  unwilling  to  submit  to  such  con- 
stitutional forms  as  then  existed,  appealed  to  the  disfranchised 
masses,  promising  them  a  restoration  of  their  political  rights  on  con- 
dition of  their  helping  him  oust  Isagoras  from  office.  The  people 
responded;  and  in  spite  of  the  interference  of  Cleomenes,  they  ulti- 
mately triumphed.  Isagoras  was  forced  into  exile;  and  Cleisthenes 
was  given  full  power,  probably  as  thesmothete,  to  fulfill  his  promise. 
The  thoroughness  with  which  he  accomplished  his  task  proved  him  a 
statesman,  and  notwithstanding  his  earlier  oligarchic  tendencies,  in  the 
depths  of  his  heart  a  lover  of  democratic  freedom.  ^^ 

The  demes.  The  growth  of  the  rural  population  under  the  tyranny, 
with  the  great  increase  in  the  number  of  villages,  rendered  the  forty- 
eight  naucraries  inadequate  as  a  local  organization.  Cleisthenes  ac- 
cordingly began  his  reforms  with  the  division  of  all  Attica  into  more 
than  a  hundred  demes  —  townships  —  differing  greatly  in  extent 
and  population  and  centering  as  a  rule  in  existing  villages.  All 
who  resided  in  a  deme  at  the  time  of  its  institution  were  enrolled,  as 
members,  hence  as  Athenian  citizens.  This  provision  included' not 
only  the  recently  disfranchised  but  also  many  alien  residents  and 
emancipated  slaves.  The  franchise  was  thus  more  widely  extended 
than  ever  before.  The  families  so  enrolled  remained  members  of 
their  original  deme,  irrespective  of  residence. 

The  deme  had  a  complete  local  organization,  including  demarch 
(mayor),  treasurer,  priests  and  priestesses  attending  to  the  service 
of  the  local  gods,  common  property  and  revenue  and  an  assembly  of 
members,  whose  resolutions  were  binding  on  the  townsmen  in  so  far 
as  they  did  not  conflict  with  the  laws  of  the  state.  In  the  township 
the  citizens  received  a  training  in  politics  and  administration  which 
helped  fit  them  for  their  part  in  the  larger  government  of  the  state. 
It  was  in  fact  the  nursery  of  the  democracy.'*^ 

The  trittyes.  The  demes  were  grouped  in  thirty  trittyes  in  such 
a  way  as  to  make  the  latter  approximately  equal  in  population.  In 
one  or  two  cases  a  trittys  contained  a  single  large  deme,  but  generally 
a  greater,  varying  number.  Each  trittys  therefore  was  a  definite  dis- 
trict. It  had  no  communal  life  but  served  merely  as  a  connecting 
link  between  the  township  and  the  tribe.     In  the  creation  of  these  dis- 

40  Revision  of  citizen  list;   Arist.  Const.  Ath.  13.  5.     Factional  strife;  op.  cit.  20;  Hdt.  v. 
66,  69-74.     Party  of  Isagoras  accursed;  Schol.   Aristoph.  Lysistr.  273. 

41  HaussouUier,  La  vie  municipale  en  Attique,  176  f. 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        119 

tricts  Cleisthenes  provided  further  tliat  ten  should  lie  near  the  Shore, 
ten  in  the  Hills,  ten  in  the  Plain. 

The  tribes  (phylae).  Of  the  trittyes  he  composed  ten  tribes  — 
ph}lae  —  drawing  by  lot  for  each  tribe  a  trittys  from  the  Shore, 
Plain,  and  Hills  respectively.  The  result  was  that  in  the  map  of 
Attica,  which  we  can  reconstruct  only  for  a  later  time,  some  tribes 
were  made  up  of  trittyes  which  did  not  touch  one  another,  whereas 
other  tribes  formed  continuous  though  irregular  districts.  There 
were  local  changes  after  Cleisthenes,  however,  and  it  may  well  be  that 
he  consistently  separated  the  trittyes  of  a  tribe. 

One  object  of  the  peculiar  arrangement  of  townships  was,  by  dis- 
tributing the  local  factions  among  all  the  tribes,  to  break  up  their 
sectional  organizations  and  put  to  an  end  their  mutual  antipathies. 
By  the  same  arrangement,  too,  Cleisthenes  succeeded  in  making  the 
tribes  approximately  equal,  not  only  in  population,  but  in  economy, 
to  the  end  that  the  burdens  of  military  service  and  taxation  might  be 
distributed  evenly  among  them.  Another  object  of  far-reaching  im- 
portance was  to  make  the  tribes  politically  equal.  Had  some  of 
them  been  wholly  near  Athens  and  others  wholly  remote,  the  nearer 
tribes  would  have  controlled  the  rest.  But  the  location  of  some 
demes  of  every  tribe  in  Athens  or  its  vicinity  secured  an  approximately 
equal  representation  of  all  the  tribes  in  the  assembly.  Largely  on 
this  condition  rested  the  success  of  the  democracy. 

Each  tribe  had  its  board  of  supervisors,  its  worship  of  the  epony- 
mous hero,  treasurer  and  communal  property,  assembly  of  members, 
and  other  institutions.  Each  performed  its  share  of  the  unpaid  public 
services,  such  as  the  building  and  repair  of  fortifications  or  the 
equipment  and  training  of  lyric  choruses.  The  four  old  tribes  were 
abolished.  The  naucraries,  superseded  by  the  demes,  lingered  on  a 
few  years.  Although  the  gentes  of  the  nobles  remained,  their  influ- 
ence was  greatly  curtailed.  The  old  citizens  retained  their  phratries, 
and  new  phratries  seem  to  have  been  instituted  for  those  who  were 
newly  admitted. *- 

The  central  government;  the  council  of  Five  Hundred.  The 
organization  of  the  central  governtnent  was  adjusted  to  the  new  tribes. 
The  council  of  Four  Hundred  was  increased  to  Five  Hundred,  fifty 

42  Tribes  and  demes;  Hdt.  v.  66,  69;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  21;  Polit.  iii.  2.  3,  1275  b.  That 
the  number  of  demes  exceeded  one  hundred  is  proved  by  epigraphic  evidence.  Inscrip- 
tions relating  to  tribes  and  demes;  Michel,  no.  136-55.  The  pliratries;  Arist.  Const.  Ath. 
21.  6;  Polit.  vi.  4.  18  f.,  1319  b. 


120  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

from  each  tribe,  distributed  amonp;  the  demes  in  proportion  to  their 
population.  For  official  purposes  Cleisthenes  divided  the  year  into 
ten  equal  periods  corresponding  to  these  ten  tribal  delegations,  and 
enacted  that  the  delegations  should  take  their  turns,  each  for  a 
tenth  of  the  year,  in  managing  the  current  business  of  the  council. 
The  fifty  members  on  duty  were  termed  prytaneis  —  foremen  — 
and  their  period  was  called  a  prytany.  The  pr^-taneis,  while  des- 
patching routine  business  on  their  own  responsibility,  reported  the 
more  serious  matters  for  the  consideration  of  the  entire  Five  Hundred. 
Of  the  business  thus  laid  before  it  the  council  disposed  finally  of  the 
lighter  affairs,  and  incorporated  those  of  greater  weight  in  bills  for 
presentation  to  the  assembly.  Henceforth,  too,  in  the  supervision 
of  administrative  officers  it  undoubtedly  gained  ground  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Areopagites. 

The  council  of  the  Areopagus.  The  council  of  the  Areopagus, 
now  containing  many  friends  of  Hippias,  could  no  longer  be  trusted 
as  the  sole  guardian  of  the  constitution.  One  who  prosecuted  a 
citizen  for  treason  or  political  conspiracy  still  had  the  privilege  of 
bringing  the  accusation  before  that  body,  or  he  might  under  a  new 
statute  bring  the  accused  before  the  popular  assembly.  While  the 
authority  of  the  Areopagites  remained  legally  untouched  in  all  other 
respects,  it  was  in  fact  necessarily  lessened  by  the  increasing  vitality 
of  the  Five  Hundred  and  of  the  assembly. 

The  assembly  and  the  heliaea ;  the  magistrates.  The  member- 
ship of  the  assembly  was  greatly  enlarged  by  the  extension  of  the 
franchise,  and  the  citizens  were  encouraged  by  the  reform  to  take  a 
more  active  interest  in  public  affairs.  The  popular  court  —  heliaea 
—  seems  to  have  remained  unchanged.  The  archons  were  still  the 
chief  magistrates,  and  the  generals,  who  commanded  the  tribal  regi- 
ments under  the  polemarch,  were  increased  to  ten. 

In  addition  to  the  small  funds  belonging  to  the  several  shrines  of 
Attica  there  were  two  chief  public  treasuries;  that  of  Athena,  under 
the  Treasurers  (tamiae)  of  the  Goddess,  and  the  Demosion  (state 
treasury)  under  the  colacretae.  Cleisthenes  instituted  a  board  of  ten 
Receivers  (apodectae),  who  under  the  supervision  of  the  Five  Hun- 
dred received  all  incoming  moneys  and  assigned  them  to  the  appro- 
priate treasuries.  It  was  a  step  toward  the  unification  of  public 
finances.*^ 

43  The   Five   Hundred;    Arist.    Const.    Aili.   21.   3;    22.    1;    43.    2   f . ;    Harpocration,    s.    v, 
f 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        121 

Ostracism.  Cleisthenes  introduced  a  peculiar  institution  termed 
ostracism.  The  word  is  derived  from  ostrakon,  piece  of  pottery, 
which  was  the  form  of  ballot  used  in  the  process.  Once  a  year,  if 
the  assembly  so  resolved,  the  citizens  met  and  voted  against  any  of 
their  number  whom  they  judged  dangerous  to  the  state.  After  the 
ballots  were  cast,  "  the  archons  counted  the  whole  number  of  ostraka; 
for  if  the  entire  number  of  voters  was  less  than  six  thousand,  the 
ostracism  was  without  effect.  Next  they  counted  the  number  of  times 
each  name  occurred,  and  that  man  against  whom  most  votes  were 
recorded  was  sent  into  exile  for  ten  years."  In  other  words  a  quorum 
of  six  thousand  was  necessary  to  secure  the  validity ^TlHe  act;  and 
in  case  of  such  a  quorum  a  plurality  of  votes  decided  the  question 
as  to  the  person  to  be  banished.  Such  an  exile,  though  inconvenient, 
was  considered  an  honor.** 

For  understanding  the  purpose  and  effect  of  ostracism  it  is  im- 
portant to  notice  that  from  of  old,  Athens  had  been  afflicted  with 
factional  strife,  renewed  after  the  fall  of  the  tyranny.  These  strug- 
gles sometimes  took  the  form  of  civil  war,  which  ended  in  the  banish- 
ment or  the  massacre  of  the  weaker  party.  Through  ostracism  Cleis- 
thenes replaced  civil  war  by  voting  in  the  settlement  of  factional 
strife  and  required  the  banishment  of  the  leader  of  the  weaker  fac- 
tion rather  than  the  sacrifice  of  his  entire  following.  That  a  man 
who  had  committed  no  crime  should  be  sent  into  exile  was  indeed 
unjust;  and  yet  it  was  far  juster  and  more  humane  than  the  banish- 
ment or  massacre  of  an  entire  political  party  merely  because  it 
chanced  to  be  the  weaker.*''^ 

Market-place,  Pnyx,  and  governmental  buildings.  The  ex- 
traordinary meetings  of  the  ecclesia  for  the  voting  of  ostracism  were 
held  in  the  market-place,  where  doubtless  the  people  had  gathered 
in  assembly  even  under  the  kings.  Henceforth,  however,  other  ses- 
sions of  the  whole  people  were  usually  held  on  the  Pnyx^  a  hill 
nearly  west  of  the  Acropolis.  But  in  most  respects  the  market-place 
remained  the  seat  of  political  life.  On  its  border  the  party  of 
Cleisthenes  erected  a  Council  Chamber  for  the  Five  Hundred,  a 
Rotunda  for  the  prytaneis,  a  King's  Porch,  and  other  governmental 

Uovrdveis  Lists  of  prytaneis;  IG.  II.  864-74.  Prosecution  of  Miltiades  before  the  assem- 
bly; Hdt.  vi.  136.  Polemarch  and  generals;  Hdt.  vi.  109-11;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  22.  2;  Plut. 
Arist.  5;   Them.  6.     Apodectae;   Androtion,  FHG.   I.  p.  371.  3.     IG.   I.   Suppl.   p.  66.   S3  a. 

44  H.  Civ.  no.  31   (Plutarch,   quoted  in  the  text  above,  and  Philochorus)   with  comment; 
Arist.  Const.  Ath.  22.  3;   43.  5. 

45  Arist.  Polit.  iii.  13.  13-25,  1284  b;  17.  7,  1288  a;  v.  3.  3,  1302  b;  8.  12,  1308  b. 


122  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

buildings.  In  this  way  the  new  democracy  began  to  stamp  its  char- 
acter upon  the  architecture  of  the  city. 

The  reorganization  completed,  501.  The  surveying  of  the  deme^, 
whose  boundaries  were  marked  by  stones,  and  the  completion  of  the 
intricate  local  arrangements  on  which  the  entire  constitution  rested, 
was  the  work  of  several  years.  We  are  not  surprised  therefore  to 
learn  that  the  institution  of  the  new  council  and  the  reorganization  of 
the  army  under  the  ten  generals  were  completed  as  late  as  501.**' 

The  constitutional  balance.  Regarding  the  constitutional  re- 
forms as  a  whole,  we  may  say  with  Grote  *"  that  they  preserved  but 
at  the  same  time  modified  and  strengthened  all  the  main  features  of 
Solon's  political  measures.  It  was  a  democracy,  though  held  in 
check  by  strong  conservative  balances.  As  democratic  elements  may 
especially  be  mentioned  the  lessening  of  the  eupatrid  and  tyrannist 
influence,  the  broadening  of  the  civic  franchise,  and  the  energizing 
of  the  political  and  patriotic  spirit  in  the  deraes,  and  thence  in  the 
Five  Hundred,  assembly,  and  heliaea  —  a  spirit  soon  to  manifest 
itself  in  prodigious  military,  artistic,  and  intellectual  activities.  The 
most  prominent  conservative  or  aristocratic  checks  were  the  preva- 
lence of  country  life,  which  prevented  the  majority  from  taking  the 
part  in  public  affairs  granted  them  by  the  constitution;  the  ab- 
sence of  pay  for  public  service  which  debarred  the  poor  from  contin- 
uouFparticipation  in  offices,  and  in  both  assembly  and  courts,  the  high 
property  qualifications  for  magistrates;  and  the  great  powers  of  the 
Council  j)f  the  Areopagus,  now  modestly  holding  itself  in  the  political 
background  but  soon  to  regain  gradually  its  supTfvision  of  govern- 
ment and  people.  Though  we  may  speak  of  Cleisthenes  as  the 
founder  of  democracy,  the  government  was  far  less  democratic  than  it 
became  in  the  following  century.*^ 

4fi  Arist.   Co7ist.  Ath.  22.  2. 

47  History  of  Greece,   IV.   135. 

48  Arist.    Const.    Ath.    29.    3    (opinion   that    it   was   not    a   democracy);    Isoc.    Areop.    16; 
Antid.  232  (democracy);  Plut.  Ciin.  15  (aristocracy);  Arist.  2.     New  energy;  Hdt.  v.  66,  78. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  J.  B.,  History  of  Greece  (2d.  ed.,  Macmillan,  1913),  chs.  iv,  v;  Holm, 
A.,  History  of  Greece  (4  vols.,  Macmillan,  1895-8),  I,  chs  xxvi-xxviii;  Curtius, 
E.,  History  of  Greece  (5  vols.,  Scribner,  1886),  II,  ch.  ii;  Grote  G.,  History  of 
Greece  (12  vols.,  Hayes,  reprint  from  ed.  of  1849-53),  III,  chs.  x,  xi;  IV,  xxx, 
xxxi;  Busolt,  G.,  Griechische  Geschichte  (3  vols.,  2d.  ed.,  Gotha,  1893-1904), 
II,  1-449  (most  thorough  treatment)  ;  Greenidge,  A.  H.  J.,  Greek  Constitutional 
History    (Macmillan,    1902),    124-62;    Botsford,    G.   W.,   Athenian  Constitution 


ATHENS:  FROM  MONARCHY  TO  DEMOCRACY        123 

-,(Ginn,  1893),  clis.  vii-xi-;  Gilbert,  G.,  Constitutional  Antiquities  of  Sparta  and 
Athens  (Macmillan,  1895),  95-133;  Zimmern,  Greek  Commonwealth  (Oxfoid, 
Clarendon  Press,  1915);  Gardner,  E.  A.,  Ancient  Athens  (Macmillan,  1902); 
Judc\ch,Topographie  von  Athen  (Munich;  Beck  1905);  Weller,  C.  H.,  Athens 
and  its  Moniniients  (Macmillan,  1913)  ;  HaussouUier,  A.,  La  vie  municipale 
en  Attiquc  (Paris:  Thorin,  1884);  Fowler  and  Wheeler,  Handbook  of  Gr»ek 
Archaeology  (Am.  Bk.  Co.)  ;  D'Ooge,  A.  L.,  The  Acropolis  of  Athens  (Mac- 
millan, 1919)  ;  Gardner,  E.  A.,  Handbook  of  Greek  Sculpture  (Macmillan,  1915) ; 
Walters,    H.  B.,  History  of  Greek  Pottery  (Murray,  1905). 


AN    OSTKAKON    C.^ST   AGAINST 
THEMISTOCLES 

(British   Museum) 


ALCAEUS  AND  SAPPHO 
(From   vase  painting) 

CHAPTER  VIII 
INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING 

750-479 

I.     Social  and  Literary  Progress 


Correlation  of  activities,  750-479.     The  alphabet  and  writing. 

It  was  due  in  part  to  increasing  intelligence  that  about  the  middle 
of  the  eighth  century  the  Greeks  entered  upon  an  era  of  industrial 
development,  colonial  expansion,  and  political  progress.  These 
movements,  on  the  other  hand,  interacting  upon  one  another,  afforded 
so  powerful  a  stimulus  to  the  mind  that  we  may  describe  the  period 
thus  beginning  as  one  of  intellectual  awakening.  The  means  of 
accumulating  knowledge  essential  to  great  progress  was  the  employ- 
ment of  the  alphabet  for  the  preservation  of  literature.  While 
adopting  the  Phoenician  alphabet,  the  lonians  modified  it  to  fit  the 
peculiarities  of  their  language.     As  its  use  extended  over  Greece,  it 

differentiated  according  to  dialect  into  various  systems.     For  a  long 

124 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  125 

time,  however,  it  seems  to  have  been  restricted  to  the  writing  of 
names  on  lots  and  perhaps  mercantile  accounts.  Thence  it  extended 
to  inscriptions  on  gifts  dedicated  to  the  gods,  lists  of  priests  who 
officiated  in  succession  at  temples,  and  of  magistrates  after  a  limit 
had  been  placed  on  the  tenure  of  office.  The  earliest  documents 
involving  connected  discourse  were  laudatory  epitaphs,  treaties  be- 
tween states,  and  laws.  Probably  the  Homeric  poems  were  long 
preserved  orally.  We  cannot  be  sure  of  a  written  literature  before 
the  seventh  century.^ 

The  rhapsodists.  The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  as  stated  in  an 
earlier  chapter,  were  mainly  Aeolic,  dominated  by  Indo-European 
ideas.  Not  long  after  their  composition  the  Homeridae,  "  sons  of 
,  Homer,"  a  gens  of  Chios,  were  journeying  through  Ionia  and  the 
•rest  of  Hellas,  chanting  them  at  the  courts  of  the  great  and  in  popu- 
lar gatherings.  From  the  staff  —  rhabdos  —  which  these  singers 
waved  in  marking  time,  they  came  to  be  known  as  rhapsodists. 
Many  were  the  minstrels,  however,  who  made  no  claim  to  descent 
from  their  poet. 

The  cycle,  about  750-600.  Under  the  Homeric  inspiration  Ionic 
poets  of  the  eighth  and  seventh  centuries  composed  various  epics, 
forming  a  group  known  as  the  cycle.  These  poems  are  lost;  we 
know  them  through  scant  fragments  still  preserved  and  through  their 
extensive  use  by  Attic  dramatists  of  later  time.  From  these  sources 
we  learn  that  the  lonians  of  the  period,  unlike  the  Homeric  Greeks, 
were  essentially  Minoan:  they  practiced  magic,  believed  in  ghosts, 
worshipped  the  dead,  and  had  traditions  of  human  sacrifices.  They 
believed,  further,  in  religious  pollution  incurred  by  homicide  and 
in  the  power  of  cleansing  such  guilt  by  ceremonies  of  purification, 
especially  with  the  use  of  swine's  blood.  In  dress  and  armor  also 
they  were  heirs  of  the  decadent  Minoan  civilization.^ 

An  intense  life  of  increasing  complexity,  750-479.  Life  in 
Ionia  during  this  period,  however,  was  anything  but  stagnant.  The 
change  from  rural  to  industrial  economy,  the  growth  of  cities  and  of 

1  The  sources  for  this  subject  are  so  presented  in  the  following  pages  as  to  require  no 
introduction  here  (cf.  H.  Civ.  p.  11-20,  175-209). Industrial  and  colonial,  political  activi- 
ties, Ch.  IV,  political,  Ch.  VII.  For  the  expression  "  Intellectual  Awakening,"  cf.  Renais- 
sance, "Rebirth."  Probable  origin  of  the  alphabet;  p.  35.  The  Roman  alphabet  is  derived 
from  the  Chalcidic,  ours  from  the  Roman.  Earliest  use  of  writing;  Hicks  and  Hill,  p.  1  ff. 
Earliest  extant  treaty;  op.  cit.  no.  9,  with  translation.  Earliest  Attic  inscription  on  a  vase 
given  as  a  prize  in  dancing.  "  He  who  now  sings  and  dances,  most  gracefully  of  all  the 
dancers";  Ath.  Mitt.  VI.  106  ff.  The  rarity  of  extant  inscriptions  for  this  period  indicates 
the  slight  use  of  writing. 

2  Edition  of  the  Cycle  fragments;  Kinkel,  G.,  Epicorum  Graecorum  fragmeiita  (Teubner, 
1877).    Translations  in  Lawton.  W.  C,  Succt^ssors  of  Homer,  ch.  i;  H.  Civ.  nos.  35,  36. 


126  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

a  leisurely  class,  as  well  as  contact  with  the  entire  Mediterranean 
world,  afforded  by  colonization  and  commerce,  brought  this  country 
distinctly  to  the  foreground  of  Hellenic  civilization.  The  abolition 
of  kingship  and  the  rise  of  aristocracies  and  tyrannies,  involving 
fierce  factional  struggles,  added  to  the  intensity  of  life.  To  express 
these  complex  conditions  the  old  epic  verse  of  calm  stately  metre  ■ — 
the  dactylic  hexameter  —  proved  wholly  inadequate.  It  gave  way 
accordingly  to  new  and  varied  measures,  which  would  better  exhibit 
the  play  of  individual  or  communal  thought  and  emotion  characteris- 
tic of  the  ne'w  era. 

The  elegy:  Callinus,  about  650.  The  first  variation  from  the 
epic  verse  is  found  in  the  elegiac  pentameter,  whose  spirit  may  be 
either  meditative  or  emotional.  Accompanied  by  the  pipe,  it  lent 
itself  equally  to  the  expression  of  political  and  social  thought,  re- 
ligious devotion,  and  martial  fire.  The  first  great  master  of  the 
elegy  was  Callinus  of  Ephesus.  About  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century,  when  the  savage  Cimmerians  from  north  of  the  Black  Sea 
were  ravaging  the  Ephesian  territory,  he  roused  his  countrymen  to 
battle  with  the  following  song :  — 

Sit   ye  in   quiet   how   long?     Stir   up   the   fierce   spirit   within   you; 

Have  ye  no  feeHng  of  shame,  youths,  for  the  dwellers  around? 

Why  thus  remiss?     Do  ye  think  ye  are  sitting  in  blissful  contentment 

Peace  given,  while  dread  war  holds  all  our  dear  native  land? 

Now  in  the  moment  of  death  hurl  your  last  spear  at  the  foe. 

Honored  is  he  and  esteemed  who  fights  in  the  foremost  of  lancers, 

Guarding  his  country,  his  home,  guarding  his  dear  wedded  wife. 

Fighting  with  foes;  for  death  comes  but  once,  and  whenever  it  may  be, 

Fate   cuts   the   thread  of   our   life.     Each   must   go  quick  to  the   front. 

Grasping  his  spear  in  his  hand,  and  under  his  shield  his  untrembling 

Heart  pressing,  panting  for  fight,  mingling  in  deadliest  fray. 

Fate  hath  decreed  that  from  death  there  shall  be  by  no  prudence  escaping; 

Doomed  are  all  mortals  to  die,  saving  no  sons  of  the  gods. 

Often  the  din  of  the  battle,  the  hurtling  of  lances  surviving. 

Sees  man  the  terror  of  death  stalking  into  his  home. 

Weaklings  are  dear  to  no  state,  nor  in  death  by  the  people  lamented ; 

Warriors  the  great  and  the  small  mourn  when  they  face  their  fair  doom; 

Longing  intense  fills  all  hearts  in  the  land  for  the  stout-minded  hero 

Dying  in  liberty's  cause;   living  they  hold  him  divine. 

Just  like  a  tower  of  defence  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  appearing, 

Works  he  the  deeds  of  a  host,  striving  alone  in  his  might. ^ 

Tyrtaeus   of  Lacedaemon.     In   its  patriotic  ideal   and  martial 

3  The  pipe  as  a  Minoan  heritage;  p.  24. —  The  only  extant  poem  of  Callinus.  The 
metre  is  a  rough  reproduction  of  the  original.  The  Cimmerians;  Hdt.  i.  6,  16;  iv.  11  f. 
The  modern  Krim  (Crimea)  retains  their  name.  They  burned  Sardis  and  destroyed  the 
temple  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  127 

spirit  this  f)oem  is  akin  to  the  elefi;y  of  Tyrtaeus  already  cited.  In 
lact  the  latter  poet  must  be  regarded  as  a  pupil  of  the  lonians. 
Along  with  the  elegy  Tyrtaeus  used  other  form's  of  verse,  as  did  also 
Solon  of  Athens,  who  lived  but  shortly  afterward.* 

Archilochus.  A  greater  personal  intensity  distinguishes  the  poetry 
of  Archilochus,  the  first  Greek  —  hence  the  first  European  —  of  whose 
private  character  we  are  in  a  position,  through  the  fragments  of  his 
verse,  to  obtain  clear,  though  fleeting,  glimpses.  In  addition  to  com-- 
posing  elegies,  he  was  the  first  great  master  of  the  iambic,  a  measure 
adapted  to  energetic  expression,  giving  utterance  to  the  whole  range 
of  human  passions  from  love  to  sarcasm  and  hate.  His  stormy  life 
was  typical  of  the  age  and  of  his  social  class.  The  son  of  an  aristo- 
cratic father  and  slave  mother,  in  youth  he  was  forced  by  "  poverty 
and  want  "  to  leave  his  native  Paros  and  join  a  colony  his  country- 
men had  established  in  Thasos.  But  he  had  no  love  for  this  new 
home,  this  "  woeful  "  island  that  "  stands  with  wild  wood  bristling 
like  a  donkey's  back,  no  fair  land,  or  lovely,  or  dear."  With  his 
fellow  colonists  he  probably  exploited  the  gold  mines  of  the  island, 
and  certainly  he  fought  with  them  against  the  Thracians  on  the  neigh- 
boring mainland.  Having  thrown  away  his  shield  and  fled  in  thif 
battle,  a  most  disgraceful  act,  he  afterward  boasted  of  it :  — 

Vaunts  some  Thracian  wight  of  the  beautiful  shield  I  abandoned. 
All  uninjured  by  scars,  grudgingly  left  by  the  brook. 
Body  and  soul  I  have  rescued.     What  matter,  the  piece  may  go  begging; 
Soon  a  new  buckler  I'll  find,  better  by  far  than  the  old. 

A  soldier  of  fortune.  He  could  not  remain  long  in  Thasos, 
because  as  he  admitted  he  was  too  insolent,  abusing  friend  and  foe 
alike,  and  doubtless  prudence  forbade  his  return  to  Paros.  Hence 
he  became  a  wanderer  over  sea  and  land,  a  poet  soldier  of  fortune, 
as  he  tells  us:  "I  am  a  companion  of  the  Lord  of  War,  and  I 
know  the  lovely  gift  of  the  Muses."     More  drastically  he  writes :  — 

Bread  for  me  baked  is  the  gain  of  my  spear;    in  my  spear  is  the  vintage 
Ismarus  yields  to  my  call;  lean  I  on  lance  while  I  drink. 

He  seems  a  pirate  from  these  words:  "  There  were  seven  dead  men 
trampled  under  foot,  and  we  were  a  thousand  murderers."  These 
quotations  are  from  his  elegies.  In  an  iambic  poem  he  teaches  a 
lesson  in  moderation :  — 

4  Tyrtaeus;    p.   86  above,   H.   Civ.   no.   42;    Botsford,   Source-Book,   p.    141-3.    Solon;    H. 
Civ.  p.   141  f.,   148  f.     Original  text  in  Bergk,   Anthol.  Lyr. 


128  HELLENIC  HISTORY 


The  gold  of  rich  King  Gyges  stirs  in  me  no  hate; 

No  slave  of  envy  am  I ;  I  do  not  emulate 

The  wondrous  deeds  of  gods,  nor  love  the  tyrant's  might; 

Such   things   unworthy    lie    beyond   mine    eyes'    dear   sight. 

A  tempestuous  spirit.  In  love  as  in  hate  he  reveals  the  same  tem- 
pestuous spirit.  Jilted  by  Neobule  —  so  reads  the  tale  —  he  lo3t  no 
time  in  sad  lament,  but  with  his  biting  iambics  drove  her  and  her  sis- 
ters to  hang  themselves.  This  man  of  muscle  and  redundant  mental 
power,  enjoying  in  a  restless  mercenary  career  the  pleasures  that  came 
his  way,  "  giving  deadly  presents  to  his  foes  "  or  inspiring  dis- 
tressed friends  with  hopeful  courage,  wrote  verses  that  placed  him 
second  to  Homer,  establishing  him  as  the  unequalled  artist  of  per- 
sonal song.^ 

Aeolian  culture:  Alcaeus,  about  600-550.  Passing  on  from  the 
seventh  to  the  sixth  century,  we  return  from  Ionian  lands  to  the  home 
of  the  Aeolians,  who  created  the  Homeric  poems,  and  who  in  Lesbos 
kept  equal  cultural  pace  with  their  southern  neighbors.  Mytilene, 
the  chief  Lesbic  city,  trading  with  Egypt,  enjoyed  the  imported  re- 
finements of  the  Orient.  Less  devoted  than  the  lonians  however  to 
commerce  and  the  useful  arts,  the  race  gave  itself  whole-heartedly  to 
social  enjoyment,  to  the  lyre  and  song.  "  Lesbos,  the  centre  of  Aeolian 
culture,  was  the  island  of  overmastering  passions;  the  personality  of 
the  Greek  race  burned  there  with  a  fierce  and  steady  flame  of  con- 
centrated feeling."  °  Here  the  poems  of  Alcaeus,  mere  shreds  as  they 
now  are,  lead  us  into  the  midst  of  civil  strife.  The  monarchy  had 
yielded  to  aristocratic  factions,  through  whose  strugggles  for  su- 
premacy scheming  leaders  of  the  populace  made  their  way  to  tyranny; 
nor  was  the  poet  himself  clear  from  the  imputation  of  seeking  su- 
preme power.     Against  his  adversary  Myrsilus  he  thus  declaims:  — 

This  man,  this  raving  idiot  here. 

With  rank  supreme  and  power  great, 
Will  quickly  overthrow  the  state; 
Already  is  the  crisis  near. 

The  poet's  first  exile :  Zeus  is  angry  at  the  motherland.  The 
usurpation  of  the  tyranny  by  Myrsilus,  and  the  failure  of  a  con- 

5  The  translations  are  mainly  the  present  author's.  See  also  H.  Civ.  no.  44;  Appleton, 
Greek  Poets,  114  f. ;  Hauvette,  H.,  Un  poete  ionicn  du  17/''  siede,  Archiloque;  sa  vie  et  ses 
poesies  (Paris,    1905); 

eSymonds,  Studies  in  the  Greek  Poets,  I.   127.    Mytilene-,  Hdt.   ii.   178. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  129 

spiracy  to  dislodge  him,  drove  the  poet  into  exile  at  Pyrrha,  a  small 
but  independent  town  in  the  island.  There  he  apostrophizes  his 
sorrowing  fatherland :  — 

What  purpose  or  intent  is  in  thee,  my  Country,  that  thou  hast  been  so 
long  time  distraught?  Be  of  good  cheer;  for  the  son  of  Cronos  himself  did 
tell  thee  that  thou  hadst  no  need  to  fear  warfare,  howsoever  it  should  seize 
thee,  nor  should  neighbor  foemen,  nay  nor  oarsmen  from  over  the  far- 
bounded  sea,  maintain  for  long  the  woeful  conflict  of  the  far-flung  spear, 
unless  thou  shouldst  of  thyself  send  afar  all  the  best  of  thy  people,  to  sunder 
them  from  thee ;  for  'tis  men  that  are  a  city's  tower  in  war.  But  alas !  thou 
no  longer  doest  the  Father's  will,  and  a  swift  fate  hath  overtaken  thee.  .  .  . 
Now  I  make  this  prayer  for  thee,  that  I  may  no  longer  see  the  daylight,  if 
the  son  of  Cleanax  or  yonder  Splitfoot  or  the  son  of  Archeanax  be  suffered 
more  to  live  by  one  whom  his  dear  sweet  native  land,  and  factious  strife  as 
old  as  itself,  together  have  done  away.'^ 

Soon  the  death  of  the  tyrant,  probably  by  violence,  permitted  the 
return  of  the  poet's  faction. 

Pittacus,  dictator  (aesymnetes).  Some  time  afterward  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  popular  government  at  Mytilene  again  forced  Alcaeus 
and  his  friends  into  exile.  To  guard  against  their  armed  return,  the 
Lesbians  appointed  their  ablest  man,  Pittacus,  dictator.  Of  him  the 
people  sang  as  they  ground  their  barley:  — 

Grind,  mill,  grind ! 
For   Pittacus  himself   is  grinding, 
Ruling  mighty  Mytilene. 

"  Pittacus  himself  employed  monarchical  power  to  dissolve  the 
despotism  of  the  many;  but  having  accomplished  this  task,  he  re- 
stored the  independence  of  the  city."  His  generous  amnesty  recalled 
the  nobles  from  banishment,  and  Alcaeus  passed  the  remainder  of 
his  days  in  peace.  During  the  long  period  of  seditions  the  poet  had 
encouraged  his  friends  by  "  songs  of  party  strife,"  from  which  quo- 
tations have  been  made  above.* 

A  wide  range  of  interests.  In  addition  to  martial  and  political 
themes,  he  wrote  on  a  great  variety  of  subiecis,  including  travel,  na- 
ture,  love,    drinking,   and   other   topics.     His   poems   were   personal 

7  Newly  found  poem,  trans,  by  Edmonds,  J.  M.,  Class.  Rev.  XXXI  (1917).  33  ff.  All 
the  recently  discovered  poems  are  badly  mutilated,  and  the  readings  therefore,  as  Mr. 
Edmonds  explains,  are  to  a  considerable  degree  conjectural.  Evidently  Mytilene  is  threat- 
ened or  actually  assailed  by  war  during  the  exile  of  the  party  of  Alcaeus,  and  the  poet  ac- 
cordingly explains  why  Zeus  is  angry  with  the  dear  motherland.  The  persons  mentioned 
near  the  close   belong  to   the   tyrant's    faction. 

«  Strabo  xiii.  2.  3;  cf.  Arist.  Polit.  in.  14,  8  f.,  1285  a.  Pittacus  was  appointed  aesym- 
netes for  ten  years,  and  at  the  end  of  this  term  he  voluntarily  laid  down  his  almost  abso- 
lute power. 


130  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

lyrics  sung  among  friends  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  lyre.  His 
favorite  stanza,  named  Alcaic  after  him  and  probably  his  invention,  is 
fairly  represented  in  the  following  translation  of  a  convivial  song  for 
a  wintry  evening : 

Zeus  hails;  the  streams  are  frozen.     In  the  sky 
A  mighty  storm  is  raging  high. 

And  now  the  forest  thick,  the  ocean  hoar, 
Grow  clamorous  with  the  Thracian  tempests  roar. 

But  drive  away  the  storm,  and  make  the  fire 
Hotter,  and  pile  the  logs  and  faggots  higher; 
Pour  out  the  tawny  wine  with  lavish  hand, 
And  bind  about  thy  head  a  fleecy  band. 

It  ill  befits  to  yield  the  heart  to  pain. 

What  profits  grief,  or  what  will  sorrow  gain? 

O  Bacchus,   bring  us  wine,  delicious  wine, 

And  sweet  exhilaration,   balm  divine. 

The  taste  of  after  ages  preferably  cited  his  drinking  songs,  with 
the  result  that  they  abound  among  his  extant  fragments.  We  are 
glad  to  learn  therefore  from  a  Latin  critic  that  he  "  contributed  greatly 
to  the  improvement  of  morals."  With  much  of  the  genius,  versatility, 
and  fire  of  Archilochus,  the  Lesbic  poet  possessed  a  more  amiable 
disposition.  Both  open  to  us  an  invaluable  insight  into  the  life  and 
character  of  their  times;  and  both  exerted  a  determining  influence  on 
the  literature  of  after  ages.^ 

Women  in  society  and  in  literature,  seventh  and  sixth  cen- 
turies. In  these  times  the  domain  of  literature  was  not  monopolized 
by  men.  In  fact  the  social  and  intellectual  development  of  women 
during  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries  has  a  unique  place  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  It  is  true  that  under  Oriental  influence  the 
upper-class  lonians  segregated  their  women.  Among  them  wives 
never  ate  with  their  husbands  or  called  them  by  name.^"  Hesiod, 
the  crabbed,  parsimonious  Boeotian  farmer,  who  regards  woman  as  a 
beast  of  burden,"  quotes  a  myth  which  attributes  the  origin  of  all 
sin  and  suffering  to  a  fair  deceitful  girl :  — 

9  Latin  critic,  Quintilian  x.  I.  63.  Text  of  older  fragments;  Smyth,  H.  W.,  Greek  Melic 
Poets,  16  ff . :  of  newer;  Edmonds,  J.  M.,  The  New  Fragments  of  Alcaeus,  Sappho,  and 
Corinna  C London;  Bell,  1909).  Translation  by  Easby-Smith,  Songs  of  Alcaeus;  H.  Civ.  p. 
192-5;  see  also  p.  15,  19. 

10  Hdt.   i.  146. 

11  "  First  ol  all  get  a  house  and  a  woman  and  an  ox  for  plowing";  Hesiod,  Works,  405. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  131 

"  Straightway  did  tlie  glorious  Lame  One  fashion  the  likeness  of  a  modest 
maiden,  as  the  Son  of  Cronos  willed.  And  the  goddess  grey-eyed  Athena 
girdled  and  arrayed  her;  the  goddess  Graces  and  Lady  Persuasion  hung  chains 
of  gold  about  her;  the  fair-tressed  Hours  crowned  her  with  flowers  of  spring. 
All  manner  of  adornment  did  Pallas  Athena  bestow  about  her  person. 
And  in  her  breast  the  INIessenger,  the  Slayer  of  Argos,  put  lies  and  cunning 
words  and  a  deceitful  soul,  as  Zeus  the  Thunderer  willed.  Also  the  Ales- 
senger  of  the  Gods  gave  her  speech.  And  he  named  this  woman  Pandora, 
for  that  all  the  dwellers  in  Olympus  had  bestowed  on  her  a  gift  —  to  be  the 
bane  of  men  that  live  by  bread."  i-  It  was  she  who  opened  the  jar  con- 
taining ten  thousand  evils,  which  forthwith  flew  out  among  men,  to  distress 
them  forever. 

Contempt  for  women.  Such  beliefs  tended  to  degrade  women  in 
society.  A  tone  of  utter  contempt  pervades  the  poem  of  Simonides  of 
Amorgus  which  compares  various  types  of  women  to  different  ani- 
mals. The  tattler  is  like  a  dog,  who  goes  about  retailing  news. 
"  Nor  can  her  husband  make  her  stop  even  with  threats,  though  in  a 
rage  he  should  knock  out  her  teeth  with  a  stone,  nor  though  he 
speak  to  her  gently  even  when  she  is  sitting  in  company  with  guests." 
The  dainty  and  extravagant  woman  resembles  a  horse,  who  will  do  no 
mean  or  servile  work.  "  She  will  not  touch  the  hand-mill  or  sieve  or 
sweep  the  house  or  sit  by  the  fire  for  fear  of  soot.  She  bathes  care- 
fully twice  a  day  or  thrice,  and  anoints  herself  with  toilet  oils.  Al- 
ways she  wears  her  tresses  combed  and  with  blossoms  shaded.  A 
comely  thing  is  such  a  wife  for  others  to  behold,  but  an  evil  to  him 
who  weds  her,  unless  he  be  a  tyrant  or  king  who  with  such  things 
adorns  his  fancy."  All,  however,  were  constrained  to  praise  the  ideal 
wife  and  mother.     In  the  poem  of  Simonides  she  is  like  a  bee: 

Fortunate  he  who  wins  her  hand; 
For  she  alone  to  censure  gives  no  cause, 
But  in  her  life  doth  bloom  and  doth  increase. 
Dear  to  her  loving  spouse  she  groweth  old, 
The  mother  she  of  children  fair  and  famed. 
Distinguished  she  among  good  women  all, 
A  grace  divine  doth  play  about  her  form.^^ 

General  freedom  of  women;  their  luxuries  and  their  education. 

Generally  outside  of  Ionia  women  went  about  freely  in  the  streetr; 
on  foot  or  in  carriages,  and  mingled  with  men  in  social  life.  Those 
of  the  wealthy  class  dyed  their  hair,  painted  their  faces,  and  wore 

12  Hesiod,   Works,  60  ff.     Argeiphontes,  an  epithet  applied  to  Hermes,   "  slayer  of  Argos," 
or  possibly  "swift  messenger,"  or  "appearing  in  brightness";   PWK.   II.   704. 

13  These  translations  of  Semonides  are   by  Mahaffy,   Social  Life,    110-13,    and   Sihler,    in 
H.  Civ.  no.  45. 

Aptly,  the  luxurious  woman  is  compared  with  a  horse,  which  the  Greeks  did  not  use  as 
a  beast  of  burden. 


132  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

luxurious  jewelry  and  dresses.  The  Doric  peplos,  a  woollen  gar- 
ment fastened  at  the  shoulders  with  large  deadly  pins,  was  relatively 
simple.  At  first  it  was  worn  on  all  the  Greek  mainland;  but  at 
some  time  in  our  period  the  Athenian  women  changed  to  the  Ionic 
chiton  of  linen,  either  sewn  or  fastened  with  small  pins  down  the 
arm.  The  new  style  of  dress  admitted  of  great  elaboration.  Over 
the  chiton  of  either  form  the  lady  threw  a  mantle  —  epiblema,  hima- 
tion  —  on  going  out.  By  combinations  of  bright  colors,  by  costly 
embroideries  and  sparkling  jewelry,  the  wealthy  lady  produced  a 
brilliant  effect.  At  the  same  time  the  custom  of  large  dowries  had 
arisen,  with  the  result  that  marriage  was  coming  to  be  regarded  as 
a  business  transaction.^*  Early  legislators  attempted  to  check  the 
luxury  and  the  personal  liberty  of  women;  and  Solon  in  addition 
restricted  the  dowry  to  "  three  himatia  and  a  few  cheap  articles 
of  household  furniture."  Notwithstanding  his  efforts  the  high-born 
women  of  his  country  suffered  but  little  restriction  during  the  next 
century  and  a  half,  while  throughout  Hellas  those  of  the  middle  and 
lower  classes  remained  as  free  as  ever.  The  liberty  and  power  of 
the  Laconian  woman  have  been  sufficiently  considered.  In  Boeotia, 
Argos,  Sicyon,  and  Lesbos,  there  were  women  who  received  a  re- 
markable education,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  poetesses  of  these  localities. 
The  sixth  century,  along  with  the  early  fifth,  was  in  fact  the  most 
brilliant  period,  at  least  till  recent  times,  in  the  intellectual  history  of 
women.  ^^ 

Sappho  and  her  friends,  early  sixth  century.  Sappho  herself 
belonged  to  an  artistocratic  family  which  stood  high  in  the  politics 
and  society  of  Lesbos.  She  was  influential  enough  to  suffer  banish- 
ment with  her  relatives  for  political  causes;  and  in  time  apprecia- 
tion of  her  genius  grew,  till  her  native  country  honored  her  by  stamp- 
ing her  image  on  its  coins.  In  a  society  which  could  not  separate 
loveliness  of  form  from  perfection  of  character,  she  became  the  centre 
of  a  literary  circle,  only  in  this  sense  a  school  of  beautiful,  brilliant 
girls.     They,  too,  were  composers  of  music  and  song.     In  this  circle 

14  For  early  Locri;  Diod.  xii.  21.  Pre-Solonian  Attica;  Plut.  Sol.  21;  also  vase-paint- 
ing showing  women  and  men  together  in  a  chorus.  Change  of  Athenian  dress;  Hdt.  v. 
87.  The  Doric  underdress  was  usually  called  peplos,  the  Athenian  chiton.  The  overdress 
is  epiblema,  wrap,  or  himation,  mantle.  Elaboration  of  new  style;  Harrison,  Vase  Paint- 
ings,  pi.    xi ;    Walters,    A  nc.    pottery,    II.    200   f . 

i'>  Zaieucus;  Diod.  xii.  21.  Solon;  Plut.  Sol.  20.  The  dowry  law  soon  became  obsolete; 
cf.  Plut.  Arist.  27.  Courtship  scene,  showing  the  free  relations  of  the  sexes  before  mar- 
riage; vase  painting.  This  condition  of  Athenian  women  continued  till  after  the  Persian 
war;  p.  219  f.— Antipater,  Anth.  Pal.  ix.  56;  Christ,  I.  193-5.  Laconian  women;  p.  2"' 
above 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  133 

it  was  a  disgrace  to  be  illiterate;   she  who  writes  naught,  declares 
Sappho,  will  go  down  ignobly  to  Hades'  realm:  — 

Yea  thou  shall  die, 

And  lie 

Dumb  in  the  silent  tomb; 

Nor  of  thy  name 

Shall  there  be  any  fame 

In  ages  yet  to  be  or  years  to  come; 
For  of  the  flowering  rose, 
That  on  Pieria  blows. 
Thou  hast  no  share ; 
But  in  sad  Hades'  house, 
Unknown,  inglorious, 

'Mid  the  dim  shades  that  wander  there 
Shalt  thou  flit  forth  and  haunt  the  filmy  air. 

Relations  between  Sappho  and  her  girl  friends.  Undoubtedly 
the  circle  represents  an  effort  of  highly  gifted  women  to  rise  above 
the  hum-drum  existence  alike  of  drudgery  and  fashion  to  the  nobler 
life  of  the  mind  and  heart.  Between  Sappho  and  her  girl  friends 
there  was  the  warmest  attachment.  The  following  poem  has  refer- 
ence to  a  pupil  who  deserted  her  for  another  instructor :  — 

So  my  Atthis  has  not  come  back,  and  in  sooth  I  wish  I  were  dead.  Yet 
she  wept  full  sore  to  leave  me  behind,  and  said,  "  Alas,  how  sad  our  lot, 
Sappho;  I  swear  'tis  all  against  my  will  I  leave  thee."  To  her  I  answered, 
"  Go  thy  way  rejoicing  and  remember  me ;  for  thou  knowest  how  fond  I 
was  of  thee.  If  thou  rememberest  not,  I  am  fain  to  remind  thee  how  dear 
and  beautiful  was  the  life  we  led  together.  For  with  many  a  garland  of 
violets  and  sweet  roses  mingled  hast  thou  decked  thy  flowing  locks  by  my 
side,  and  with  many  a  woven  necklet,  made  of  a  hundred  blossoms,  thy 
dainty  throat;  and  with  many  a  jar  of  myrrh  of  the  precious  and  royal 
kinds  hast  thou  anointed  thy  fair  young  face  before  me;  and  reclining  upon 
the  couch  hast  thou  satisfied  thyself  with  dainty  meats  and  sweet  drinks. 

Mnasidica,  who  now  lives  in  Sardis.  Here  as  elsewhere  she 
glorifies  the  beauty  of  form  and  the  pleasures  of  sense.  Another 
poem,  addressed  to  a  girl  still  with  her,  was  doubtless  to  be  sent  to 
a  former  pupil,  Mnasidica,  now  living  in  Sardis,  most  probably  the 
wife  of  a  Lydian  grandee :  — 

Atthis,  our  beloved  Mnasidica  dwells  in  far-off  Sardis,  but  she  often  sends 
her  thoughts  hither,  recalling  how  once  we  used  to  live  in  the  days  when 
she  thought  thee  like  a  glorious  goddess,  and  loved  thy  song  the  best.  Now 
she  shines  among  the  dames  of  Lydia,  as  after  sunset  the  rosy-fingered  moon 
beside  the  stars  that  are  about  her,  when  she  spreads  her  light  o'er  briny  sea 


134  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  eke  o'er  flowery  field,  while  the  good  dew  lies  on  the  ground  and  the 
dainty  anthrysc  and  the  honey  lotus  with  all  its  blooms.  And  oftentimes 
when  our  beloved,  wandering  abroad,  calls  to  mind  her  gentle  Atthis,  the 
heart  devours  her  tender  breast  with  pain  of  longing;  and  she  cries  aloud 
for  us  to  come  thither ;  and  what  she  says  we  know  full  well,  thou  and  I, 
for  Night,  the  many-eared,  calls  it  to  us  across  the  dividing  sea. 

Summary  of  Sappho's  interests.  Here  are  interesting  glimpses 
of  woman's  literary  life,  of  social  relations  between  Lesbos  and 
Lydia,  of  telepathic  sympathy,  added  to  a  delicate  appreciation  of 
natural  beauty  in  the  night,  the  sea  and  flowers.  Often  elsewhere  are 
sympathetic  touches  of  nature,  as  when  she  speaks  of  "  Spring's  mes- 
senger, the  deep-voiced  nightingale,"  or  refers  to  the  spot  where  — 

All  around  through  branches  of  apple-orchards 
Cool  streams  call,  while  adown  from  the  leaves  a-tremble 
Slumber  distilleth. 

With  all  of  her  love  of  flowery  fields,  cool  streams,  and  singing  birds, 
her  interest  centres  in  human  beings,  their  sorrows,  joys,  loves,  and 
marriages.  In  the  beauty  of  her  thoughts,  in  melodious  verse,  and  in- 
tensity of  feeling  she  scarcely  has  an  equal  in  literature.  But  the 
Athenians  of  later  time,  who  could  not  appreciate  freedom  and  high 
intelligence  in  women,  gave  her  a  bad  reputation  and  their  judgment 
prevailed  till  modern  scholarship  succeeded  in  vindicating  her  char- 
acter.^^ 

Choral  lyrics.  The  poems  of  Sappho,  like  those  of  Alcaeus, 
were  personal  lyrics.  Meanwhile  other  poets  were  engaged  in  com- 
posing choral  lyrics  which  were  essentially  public.  This  kind  of 
ode  was  sung  by  a  group  of  persons  appropriately  dressed  and  trained, 
who  accompanied  the  song  with  a  rhythmic  movement,  or  dance. 
The  equipment  and  training  involved  expense,  borne  by  a  wealthy 
person  or  more  commonly  by  the  state.  The  ode  was  expected  to 
express  accordingly,  not  the  feelings  of  the  writer  alone,  but  of  the 
whole  community.  In  Greece  there  was  no  sharp  distinction,  such  as 
now  exists,  between  society  and  state.  The  citizens  were  mostly 
known  to  one  another;  and  the  reunions  of  kinsmen,  neighbors, 
phratries,  and  of  the  entire  community  in  festivals,  were  not  only 
social  but  religious  and  civic  functions.  These  circumstances  explain 
the  existence  of  a  form  of  poetry  which  was  at  one  and  the  same 

Ifi  Text  of  the  older  fragments;  Smj'th,  Greek  Melic  Ports,  24  ff.  (selections);  of  the  newer 
fragments;  Edmonds,  The  New  Fragments  of  Alcaeus,  Sappho,  and  Corinna.  Prose  trans- 
lations; Edmonds,  Class.  Rev.  XXIII.  99  ff.  Verse  translations;  Wharton,  H.  T.,  Sappho 
(Chicago:  McClurg,  18S7),  translations  by  varipus  poets.    See  also  H.  Civ.   no.  48. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  L^5 

time  religious,  social,  and  civic.  Arising  from  unpolished  folk-songs, 
they  gradually  develof)ed  an  artistic  character  in  the  hands  of  skilled 
composers.  They  were  most  at  home  in  the  Doric  states,  especially 
in  Lacedaemon,  where  the  government  aimed  to  regulate  communal 
life,  so  to  speak,  in  a  harmonious  rhythm.  Among  a  people  delicately 
sensitive  to  sights  and  sounds,  the  patriotic  and  moral  appeal  was 
made  less  to  the  intellect  than  to  the  eye  and  ear.  The  best-known 
among  the  earlier  masters  of  choral  song  was  Alcman  of  Lacedae- 
mon, whose  poems  have  already  been  cited.  He  is  most  celebrated 
for  his  parthenia,  choral  songs  for  girls.  There  were  similar  odes 
for  grown  women,  boys,  and  men  respectively,  presented  at  the  re- 
ligious festivals  of  the  state.  The  form  of  ode  which  contained  the 
germ  of  the  drama  will  be  spoken  of  in  other  connections,  whereas  the 
treatment  of  Pindar,  the  greatest  of  choral  lyrists,  with  his  contem- 
porary Bacchylides,  belongs  to  a  later  period. ^'^ 

17  Alcman;   p.   84.    Pindar  and   Bacchylides;   p.   214  f. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Holm  I,  339-344;  Beloch  I,  i,  ch.  xv;  Bury,  171-183,  192-202;  Grote  IV, 
ch.  xxix;  Wright,  Greek  Literature,  45-142;  Croiset,  A  &  M.,  Histoire  de  la 
litterature  grecque  (Paris,  1887),  II,  1-297;  Mahaffy,  Social  Life  in  Greece 
(Macmillan,  1883),  ch.  iv;  Donaldson,  J.,  Woman,  Her  Position  and  Influence 
in  Ancient  Greece  (Longmans,  1907);  Capps,  E.,  Homer  to  Theocritus  (Scrib- 
ner,  1901),  129-167.  Consult  also  other  general  histories  of  Greek  literature. 
For  special  bibliographies  cf.  Bolsford  and  Sihler,  Hellenic  Civilization. 


CHAPTER  IX 
INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING 

750-479 
II.     Religious,  Moral,  and  Scientific  Progress 

Origin  of  religion  in  the  worship  of  the  dead.  The  most  ob- 
vious, and  perhaps  the  most  primitive,  origin  of  religion  is  the  phe- 
nomenon of  sleep  and  dreams.  The  body  is  the  principal  self,^  but 
along  with  it  is  the  soul,  a  shadow  or  image  of  the  body.  While  the 
real  self  is  unconscious  in  sleep,  the  shadow  double  communes  with 
other  souls  and  foresees  the  future.-  Death  is  closely  akin  to  sleep. ^ 
The  body  decays  or  is  burned  but  the  soul  -urvives  with  hunger  and 
thirst,  and  with  a  power  at  least  to  annoy.  These  conditions  ac- 
count for  the  worship  of  the  dead.  Thence  a  childlike  imagination 
peopled  the  world  with  similar  spirits,  whose  like  demands  created 
the  worship  of  natural  objects  and  forces. 

A  social  origin  of  religion.  The  growth  of  these  ideas  was  re- 
inforced by  deeper  experiences  of  the  soul.  Men  were  conscious 
of  possessing  powers,  which  they  vaguely  confused  with  the  forces 
of  nature.  Personal  emotions  or  powers  were  greatly  intensified 
by  becoming  social  —  when  felt  or  exerted  by  a  group  of  human 
beings  accustomed  to  a  common  life.  ■*  Their  sacred  dance  or  other 
collective  ceremony  wrought  magically  upon  nature  in  the  interest  of 
the  group.  Doubtless  it  was  this  social  emotion,  whose  power  sur- 
passed the  individual  comprehension,  which  led  them  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  a  spirit  —  daemon  —  of  the  group  or  community.  He 
was  a  being  like  a  human,  though  generally  invisible  and  working 
with  greater  mystery  and  pov/er  —  whose  life  was  bound  up  with 
that  of  his  community.  When  a  daemon  came  to  be  conceived  as 
independent  of  its  natural  object  or  force  or  social  group,  or  when 
it  acquired  a  definite  personality,  it  became  a  god.^ 

1  n.  i.  3  f. 

2  Pindar,   Frag.   131;  //.   xxiv.    103  ff. 

3  Od.  xiii.  79  f. 

4  Cf.  Hymn  to  Aphrod.  262  ff . ;    Orphic  Lithica  303. 

r>  Preferably  daemon  refers  to  the  power  of  the  spiritual  being,  theos  (god)  to  its  per- 
sonality. The  distinction  given  in  the  text,  assumed  to  belong  to  an  early  stage  of  re- 
ligion,   is   not   clearly   maintained    in   Greek   literature. 

136 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  137 

To  maintain  relations  with  either  of  these  beings,  a  social  group 
founded  an  altar  to  him,  and  instituted  a  ritual  for  his  worship, 
watched  over  by  priest  or  priestess,  whose  office  was  sometimes  heredi- 
tary, sometimes  elective.  The  chief  element  of  the  ritual  was  a 
sacrifice  —  a  meal  partaken  of  in  good  fellowship  by  the  god 
and  his  worshippers.  There  were  also  prayers,  hymns,  dances,  and 
the  presentation  of  gifts,  votive  offerings,  for  the  adornment  of  the 
shrine.  In  the  imagination  of  the  worshippers  the  deities  generally 
took  the  form  of  men  and  women,  though  taller,  stronger,  and  more 
beautiful. 

Heroes  and  communal  deities.  Usually  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
were  worshipped  by  the  family  at  its  tombs.  Heroes  were  the  more 
powerful  spirits  of  men  who  had  been  great  on  earth,  the  founders 
of  cities  or  other  mighty  benefactors  of  their  kind.  Every  associa- 
tion of  men,  as  a  gens,  phratry,  deme,  or  tribe,  in  addition  to  other 
deities,  had  its  name-giving  hero,  the  real  or  fictitious  ancestor  of 
the  group."^  Every  state  had  especial  guardian  deities,  worshipped  by 
all  the  citizens.  Each  of  these  gods  enjoyed  an  independent  exist- 
ence: the  Athena  or  Zeus  of  a  given  locality  or  phratry  or  state  was  a 
personal  being  distinct  from  every  other  Athena  or  Zeus. 

Myth:  original  and  derived  meaning.  Originally  myth  was 
the  expression  of  a  religious  idea  or  emotion  in  the  form  of  a  story 
created  by  a  fresh,  childlike  imagination.  As  the  Greek  mind  in  the 
course  of  development  began  to  look  for  the  causes  of  usages,  institu- 
tions, and  of  the  world  itself,  it  was  for  a  time  satisfied  with  myths. 
These  stories,  however,  never  became  dogmas  among  the  Greeks,  but 
remained  plastic,  freely  moulded  to  suit  the  poet's  fancy  or  the  gene- 
alogist's purpose.'^ 

The  temple.  In  Minoan  time  the  chief  deity  dwelt  in  a  chapel 
of  the  palace,  and  during  the  Middle  Age  he  was  content  with  a 
modest  shelter  for  himself  and  his  movable  goods.®  In  the  course  of 
the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries  all  the  more  important  gods  came  to 

0  Hesiod,  Works,  159  ff . ;  Hdt.  vi.  38;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  21.  5  f.  (archegetae,  founders); 
Plut.  Cleo)ii.  39 ;   see  also  Heros  in  the  diets,   of  antiquities. 

7  The  earliest  literary  sources  for  Greek  religion  are  Homer  and  Hesiod;  in  fact  they 
represent  the  most  remote  stage  within  the  historical  Greek  vision;  Hdt.  ii.  53.  Modern 
scholars  aim  through  comparative  research  to  reconstruct  the  more  primitive  period.  The 
attempt  to  derive  religion  from  magic  is  chiefly  represented  by  Frazer,  J.  G.,  Golden 
Bough  (3d  ed.  Macmillan,  1911-15);  3d  ed.  of  his  Pausanias,  Description  of  Greece,  with 
commentary  (Macmillan,  1913);  cf.  Murray,  G.,  Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion  (Columbia 
University  Press,  1912).  Although  the  attempt  has  failed,  comparative  research  has  proved 
highly  valuable.  Harrison,  J.  E.,  Themis:  a  Study  of  the  Social  Origins  of  Greek  Religion 
(Cambridge:  University  Press,  1912),  though  sharing  in  the  fault  of  Frazer's  speculations, 
has  done  an  excellent  service  in  emphasizing  the  social  origins. 

8  The  Minoan  and  the  Middle  Age;  p.  21,  22. 


138 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


be  housed  in  well-built,  artistic  dwellings.  The  simplest  form  was 
the  tempk  in  antis,  whose  cella  and  vestibule  preserved  the  main 
elements  of  the  Homeric  palace.  Thence  developed  the  double  tem- 
ple in  antis,  which  for  greater  beauty  and  for  the  shelter  of  worship- 
pers might  be  surrounded  by  a  peristyle.  In  this  case  it  is  termed 
peripteral.  There  grew  up  as  a  distinct  type  the  prostyle  temple, 
whose  vestibule  was  fronted  by  a  row  of  columns.  A  development 
from  the  latter  type  is  the  amphiprostyle  temple,  which,  too,  might  be 


PLAN  OF  TEMPLE   AT  PRIENE 

Double   Temple   in  antis  surrounded 

by    Peristyle 

(From  Rayet  and  Thomas,  Milet  et  le 

Golfe  Latinique.   PI.  IX) 


PLAN  OF  SMALL  TEMPLE 
Rhamnus.  A,  cella;  B,  vestibule 

(From    Unedited   Antiquities    of  Attica, 
Chap.  VII,   PI.  I) 


made  peripteral.  The  temples  of  Greece  and  her  western  colonies 
were  prevailingly  of  the  Doric  order,  a  growth  from  Minoan  elements. 
The  earlier  examples  of  this  order  give  an  impression  of  sturdiness 
and  substantiality,  gradually  transformed  into  gracefulness  with  the 
increasing  height  and  slenderness  of  the  columns  and  the  diminution 
of  the  curves.  A  new  element  of  beauty  was  added  when  toward  the 
end  of  the  sixth  century  the  Greeks  of  certain  places  began  to  use 
marble  instead  of  the  earlier  limestone. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  139 

Earliest  metopes.  The  most  ancient  stone  temples  have  fallen 
to  ruin;  but  the  metopes  from  one  of  the  earliest,  at  Selinus,  Sicily, 
near  the  close  of  the  seventh  century,  may  be  seen  in  the  Museum  of 
Palemio.  In  the  sculptural  groups  that  adorn  them  the  lines  are 
monotonously  parallel,  the  human  forms  are  disproportionate;  the 
attitudes  are  rigid;  and  yet  a  certain  freshness  and  originality  stamp 
the  work  as  Greek. 

Advance  in  art  under  the  Peisistratidae,  560-510.  In  the 
age  of  the  Peisistratidae  a  great  advance  was  made  throughout 
Hellas  in  architecture  as  well  as  in  other  arts;  and  the  patronage 
of  those  tyrants  was  directed  to  bringing  Athens  abreast  of  the  gen- 
eral progress.  From  the  islands  of  the  Aegean  sea,  artists  flocked 
to  Athens  to  paint  vases,  build  temples,  and  chisel  reliefs  and  statues 
to  satisfy  the  improving  taste  of  the  community.  In  honor  of 
Athena,  patron  goddess  of  the  city,  Peisistratus  surrounded  her  tem- 
ple on  the  Acropolis  with  a  peristyle.  The  limestone  of  the  build- 
ing was  stuccoed  and  painted  in  brilliant  colors,  dominantly  red  and 
blue,  in  the  fashion  of  the  age.  For  the  first  time  at  Athens  marble 
was  used  in  architecture.  The  metope  and  pediment  sculptures  of 
the  Athena  temple  were  of  that  material  imported  from  Paros. 
Among  the  other  works  of  these  tyrants  we  may  merely  mention  the 
gigantic  temple  to  the  Olympian  Zeus  founded  by  them  beside  the 
Ilissus,  to  be  completed  six  centuries  later  by  the  Emperor  Hadrian. 

The  older  Parthenon.  Emulating  the  tyrants'  zeal  for  build- 
ing, the  party  of  Cleisthcnes,  after  the  completion  of  his  reforms, 
began  a  new  and  more  splendid  temple  to  Athena  on  the  Acropolis, 
south  of  the  existing  shrine,  on  the  site  afterward  occupied  by  the 
Parthenon.  Unlike  the  old  temple,  it  was  to  be  of  Pentelic  marble. 
For  the  site  they  first  constructed  a  terrace  for  leveling  the  southern 
slope  of  the  Acropolis,  and  placed  thereon  the  foundation.  Many 
marble  drums,  too,  for  the  temple  had  been  :onveyed  from  Pentelicus, 
when  the  invasion  of  Xerxes  cut  short  the  work,  till  it  could  be 
resumed  years  afterward  by  Pe-icles.  The  pre-Persian  building  is 
known  as  the  Older  Parthenon. 

Statues,   especially   of   women.     Religion  expressed   itself  not 
only  in  the  temple  with  its  sculptured  decorations,  but  also  in  statues, 
whether  of  the  deity  or  his  worshippers  or  of  famous  athletes  or  of 
benefactors  of  the  state.     A  common  material  was  wood;   and  the 
most  revered  image  of  Athena  on  the  Acropolis,  even  in  the  period  of 


140 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


highest  artistic  development,  remained  a  mere  log  with  human  features 
crudely  indicated.  Equally  early  doubtless  was  the  use  of  soft  lime- 
stone from  which,  about  600,  the  artists  passed  to  marble.  Most 
primitive  is  the  statue  of  a  woman  found  at  Delos  and  represent- 
ing Artemis  or  a  worshipper  of  that  goddess.     It  is  a  marble  block 

with  the  roughest  suggestion  of 
a  woman's  form  and  dress. 
The  advance  made  within  the 
sixth  century  may  be  estimated 
by  comparing  one  of  the 
"  maiden  "  statues  dedicated  to 
Athena  on  the  Acropolis  no  long 
time  before  the  Persian  war. 
Though  slightly  stiff  and  con- 
ventional, the  form  shows  a 
noteworthy  gain  in  grace  and 
naturalness,  and  the  drapery  is 
delicatelv  elaborated.  The  air 
of  refined  luxury  which  sur- 
rounds this  Athenian  lady  is 
doubtless  an  importation  from 
Ionia,  whence  the  softer  ele- 
ments of  civilization  came  to  the 
Greek  peninsula. 

The  statues  of  athletes. 
In  the  series  of  "  Apollos  " 
extending  through  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, we  may  trace  the  develop- 
ment of  the  nude  form  of  the 
youthful  athlete.  The  original 
type  seems  strongly  Egyptian: 
the  posture  is  rigid,  the  only 
deviation  from  strict  frontality 
is  a  slight  advance  of  the  left 
foot,  perhaps  to  suggest  walking.  As  in  the  earlier  women  statues, 
the  arms  are  attached  to  the  sides  and  the  bodies  show  little  knowledge 
of  anatomy.     But  we  can  trace  a  steady  advance  through  the  series, 


"MAID  OF  ATHENS" 
(Acropolis   Museum) 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING 


141 


and  at  the  beginning  of  the  following  period  we  shall  find  a  marvel- 
ous mastery  of  athletic  form  and  posture.  In  contrast  with  the  Ori- 
entals the  Greeks  liked  to  display  the  unclad  forms  of  men  both  in  life 
and  in  art.  This  predilection  contri- 
l)uted  vastly  to  the  development  of  na- 
turalness in  art,  and  to  a  true  apprecia- 
tion of  human  physical  perfection,  in- 
volving a  respect  for  the  dignity  of  the 
body  wholly  foreign  to  the  Orient. " 

Reasons  for  the  rapid  advance  of 
sculpture.  Having  begun  in  the  sev- 
enth century  with  a  skill  far  inferior  to 
that  of  the  contemporary  Egyptian,  the 
Greek  sculptor  rapidly  brought  his  art 
abreast  of  the  general  progress  of  Hel- 
lenic culture.  This  success  was  largely 
due  to  his  willingness,  while  learning 
all  his  predecessors  could  teach,  to  study 
external  nature  and  the  human  form 
continually  anew,  and  quite  as  much  to 
his  constant  effort  to  express  in  art  the 
best  thought  and  the  noblest  aspiration 
of  his  age.  Hence  it  results  that  the 
material  he  has  left  us,  fragmentary 
as  it  is,  forms  a  most  valuable  source 
of  our  knowledge  of  the  Hellenic  char- 
acter. ^° 

Festivals:  the  Panathenaea.  The 
gods  required  for  their  own  happiness 
not  only  beautiful  temples  decorated 
with  reliefs,  statues,  and  paintings,  but 
also  festivals,  wherein  the  citizens  might 
gladden  their  own  hearts.  A  most 
prominent  feature  of  Athena  worship  at 
Athens  was  a  festival  held  every  sum- 
mer, the  Panathenaea.  Peisistratus  ordained  that  every  fourth  year 
the  festival  was  to  be  given,  as  the  Greater  Panathenaea,  with  especial 


THE  TENEAN  APOLLO 
(Boston   Museum   of  Fine  Arts) 


9  Cf.  Thuc.  i.  6.  5. 

10  The  sources  for  art  are  essentially  the  remains,  described  in  the  works  on  art  given  at 
the  close  of  the  chapter. 


142 


DIONYSUS   WORSHIP 
(Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


PERSEPHONE,  TRIPTOLEMUS  AND  DEMETER 
(Vase  painting) 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  143 

magnificence.  Prisoners  were  set  free,  and  slaves  were  permitted  to 
feast  with  their  masters.  There  were  races,  war  dances  in  armor,  ath- 
letic competitions,  and  a  grand  procession  of  all  the  free  population,  the 
priests  and  magistrates,  the  populace  in  varied  festive  attire,  youths  and 
girls  carrying  articles  and  Lrtensils  needed  for  the  sacrifice.  The  ob- 
ject of  the  ceremony  was  to  bring  the  goddess  the  peplos  that  had  been 
woven  and  embroidered  for  her  by  her  chosen  girls.  The  procession 
passed  through  the  streets  and  up  the  steep  ascent  of  the  Acropolis  to 
the  great  altar  before  the  temple  of  Athena.  Peisistratus  added  the  re- 
citation of  Homer's  poems;  ^^  and  this  new  feature  bore  immediate 
fruit  in  introducing  epic  subjects  into  the  rising  art  of  painting  and 
in  giving  an  epic  content  to  the  drama,  then  in  its  earliest  beginnings. 

From  formalism  to  emotional  worship.  The  tendency  of  all 
ritual  is  to  lose  its  meaning  and  to  sink  into  dry  barren  formalism, 
which  fails  to  satisfy  the  emotional  need  of  mankind.  This  principle 
holds  for  the  ceremonies  of  Greek  worship.  As  their  springs  of 
emotion  dried  up,  the  void  came  to  be  filled  by  the  worship  of 
Dionysus.  His  cult,  as  some  assert,  may  have  survived  among  the 
peasants  from  the  Minoan  age;  at  all  events  in  the  seventh  and  sixth 
centuries  it  received  a  new  impetus  from  Thrace,  where  the  same 
god,  or  one  closely  like  him,  was  venerated.  The  belief  prevailed 
that  in  childhood  he  was  torn  to  pieces  by  the  Titans,  but  restored  to 
life  through  rebirth.  The  half-human,  suffering,  ever-youthful  god, 
the  spirit  of  life  in  nature  and  man,  awakener  of  joys,  appealed 
directly  to  the  emotions.  Throngs  of  worshippers,  the  majority 
women,  roamed  in  wild  nocturnal  revels  over  mountain  top,  and 
danced  in  ecstasy  to  the  roll  of  drums  and  the  clashing  of  cymbals. 
By  such  means  they  became  one  with  their  deity,  partakers  of  his 
immortal  life.^^ 

Orphism.  In  the  sixth  century  an  effort  was  made  to  transform 
this  unbridled  worship  into  a  theology  and  a  "  church."  The  leaders 
of  the  new  movement  looked  back  for  their  master  to  Thracian 
Orpheus,  who  appears  in  story  as  a  minstrel  of  wondrous  power. 
The  faith  was  spread  by  missionaries,  who  travelled  throughout 
Hellas   initiating   converts   and    founding    societies   of   worshippers. 

llPanathenaea  founded,  566;  Clinton,  Fasti,  I.  238;  cf.  Euseb.  C/iro».  P-  188.  Char- 
lot  race  introduced;  Mar.  Par.  10.  Recitations  of  Homer;  Plato,  Hipparchus,  228  b.  Mus- 
ical contests;   Plut.  Per.   13.     Torch  race;   IG.   II.   no.   163. 

12  See  especially  Euripides,  Bacchae. 


144  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

They  had  their  sacred  scriptures,  containing  prophecies  and  hymns." 
Adopting  the  worship  of  Dionysus,  they  gave  it  a  more  regular  form 
and  a  higher  spiritual  interpretation.  After  the  emotional  rites  of 
initiation  they  lived  ascetic  lives.  They  were  under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  soul  is  suffering  the  punishment  of  sin  (committed  in  a 
previous  existence),  and  that  the  body  is  an  enclosure  or  prison,  in 
which  the  soul  is  incarcerated.^'*  By  purity  of  living  and  the  practice 
of  their  rituals,  however,  they  were  able  not  only  to  cleanse  themselves 
from  sin  and  secure  eternal  happiness,  but  even  to  redeem  the  souls 
of  the  dead  from  punishment  in  Tartarus.  ^^ 

Eternal  happiness.  Great  in  the  coming  world,  they  thought, 
will  be  the  bliss  of  the  righteous:  "Evenly  ever  in  sunlight  night 
and  day  an  unlaborious  life  the  good  receive.  .  .  .  Whosoever  have 
been  of  good  courage  to  the  abiding  steadfast  thrice  on  either  side  of 
death  and  have  refrained  their  souls  from  all  iniquity,  travel  the  road 
of  Zeus  unto  the  tower  of  Cronos.  There  round  the  islands  of  the 
blest  the  Ocean  breezes  blow,  and  golden  flowers  are  glowing,  some 
from  the  land  on  trees  of  splendor,  and  some  the  water  feedeth,  with 
wreaths  whereof  they  entwine  their  hands."  "  Some  in  horses  and 
in  bodily  feats,  and  some  in  dice,  and  some  in  harp-playing  have 
delight;  and  among  them  thriveth  all  fair-flowering  bliss."  It  be- 
hooveth  therefore  in  this  life  to  walk  in  moderation,  refraining  from 
evil-doing,  insolence,  and  presumptuous  thoughts. ^"^ 

The  Eleusinian  mysteries.  In  no  state  was  Orphism  accepted 
as  a  part  of  the  public  worship,  though  the  Peisistratidae  were  warm 
patrons  of  Onomacritus,  its  most  distinguished  prophet.  But  Athens 
did  not  hesitate  to  worship  Dionysus  in  shrines  of  his  own  and  to  join 
him  with  Demeter  and  her  daughter  Persephone,  the  great  goddesses 
of  Eleusis.  Their  worship,  once  local  and  eupatrid,  had  now  become 
national,  open  to  all  Hellenes  who  were  free  from  religious  pollution. 
Once  a  year  the  devotees  of  these  goddesses,  gathering  at  Athens, 
moved  in  procession  along  the  Sacred  Way  to  Eleusis.  Arriving 
there,  the  initiated  entered  the  shrine,  Telesterion,  where  were  per- 
formed the  sacred  rights  which  none  dared  disclose.  Those  who 
wished  and  were  qualified  were  initiated.     The  mysteries  seem  to  have 

13  Fragments    of   their   writings;    Diels,    Frag.    d.    Vorsokratiker,    II.    163-94    (including 
those  on  gold  plates,   recently  discovered). 

14  Plato,   Crnt.  400  c;   cf.   Eurip.   Frag.   475. 

15  Plato,   Rrp.   ii.  364;   Demosth.   Crown,  259  f. 

16  Pindar,  Ol.  ii.  67-82 ;   frag.   129  f. ;  cf.   137 ;  Pyth.  iii.  58-62. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  145 

consisted  chiefly  of  a  "  passion  play  "  representing  the  sorrows  of 
Dcmeter,  when  her  daughter  was  carried  off  by  Hades,  and  the  joy  of 
recovering  her.  The  ceremony  probably  once  referred  to  the  death  of 
vegetation  in  winter  and  its  rebirth  in  spring.  In  this  period,  how- 
ever, it  came  to  signify  death  and  the  resurrection  of  the  soul  to 
eternal  happiness.  "  O,  thrice  blessed  the  mortals  who  have  seen 
these  mysteries  before  descending  to  Hades'  realm;  for  those  only 
will  there  be  a  future  life  (of  happiness) ;  the  others  there  will  experi- 
ence naught  but  suffering."  ^"  Thus  "  Demeter  .  .  .  brings  the 
initiated  the  sweetest  consolation  at  death  and  the  hope  of  eternity."  ^^ 
In  this  way  the  joys  of  Elysium,  in  Homer's  conception  opened  to  the 
favored  few,  were  democratized  by  the  progress  of  Athens  toward 
popular  liberty  and  equality. 

Origin  of  the  drama  and  the  dramatic  festivals  at  Athens.  In 
addition  to  a  share  in  the  Eleusinian  festival,  Dionysus  had  his  own 
holidays,  connected  with  the  culture  of  the  vine,  for  his  was  the  ecstasy, 
too,  of  the  wine  cup.  As  his  worship  developed,  many  festivals  in 
honor  of  the  dead  were  transferred  to  him.  In  December  the  villages 
of  Attica  celebrated  the  rural  Dionysia,  in  which  a  chorus  of  men,  in 
rustic  attire,  sang  in  his  honor  an  unpolished  but  joyous  song,  the 
dithyramb.  There  was  a  festival  in  the  city,  the  Lenaea,  in  January, 
and  another,  the  Greater  Dionysia,  in  March.  Similar  festivals  were 
held  in  other  parts  of  Greece.  The  wild  strain  sung  to  Dionysus  was 
transformed  by  poetic  art  into  a  choral  ode.  The  singing  was  inter- 
spersed with  recitation,  which  gradually  developed  into  the  dialogue. 
Thus  arose  the  drama.  This  growth  was  fostered  by  the  tyrants.  At 
the  court  of  Periander  the  Lesbic  poet  Arion  set  the  dithyramb  to 
order;  and  at  the  court  of  Peisistratos  lived  Thespis,  reputed  the  first 
dramatic  writer.  Through  the  encouragement  of  popular  cults,  as 
distinguished  from  those  monopolized  by  the  nobility,  the  tyrant  aimed 
to  free  the  masses  from  eupatrid  control,  and  attach  them  to  himself. 
For  a  long  time,  however,  the  drama  must  have  continued  crude  and 
immature.  Even  at  the  close  of  the  period  it  was  essentially  a 
cantata  in  which  the  singing  was  occasionally  interrupted  by  dia- 
logue. ^^ 

17  Soph.    Frag.    733. 

18  Isoc.  Paneg.  28;  cf.  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter,  480-2;  Aristoph.  Frogs,  137  ff.,  182  ff., 
289  ff.,  454;  Paus.  x.  31.  9  ff.  "The  beautiful  thing  in  the  mysteries  from  the  blessed  gods 
is  that  for  mortals  death  is  not  an  evil  but  a  blessing";  Inscr.  in  Ephcni.  Arch.  1883.  p. 
81  (found  at  Eleusis). 

i9Arist.  Poet.  3  f.,  1448  a,  1449  a;  Hdt.  i.  23;  Schol.  Find.  01  xiii.  25;  Mar.  Par.  43; 
Pollux  iv.  123. 


146  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  four  great  national  games.  All  Hellenic  states  had  their 
festivals  similar  to  those  of  Athens;  in  tradition  the  oldest  home  of 
competitions  in  athletics  and  music  was  Crete  and  Lacedaemon, 
whence  they  extended  to  the  rest  of  Hellas.  Most  festivals  remained 
confined  to  a  single  locality,  or  at  the  widest  to  a  city-state;  but  in  a 
few  instances  games  in  honor  of  a  local  deity  became  for  unknown 
reasons  pan-Hellenic.  Such  were_Jhe_four__great  national  festivals 
celebrated  at  Delphi,  on  the  Corinthian  Isthmus,  at  Nemea,  and  at 
Olympia,  in  honor  of  Apollo,  Poseidon,  Nemean  Zeus,  and  01>Tnpian 
Zeus  respectively.  At  the  founding  of  the  Ol3'nipic  games,  a  simple 
foot-race  sufficed,  but  other  "  events  "  were  successively  added  till  the 
games  included  many  kinds  of  athletic  contests  together  with  the 
races  of  horses  and  chariots.  Especially  noteworthy  is  the  pentathlon, 
comprising  running,  wrestling,  leaping,  spear-hurling,  and  discus- 
throwing.  The  contestant  had  to  be  an  "  all-around  "  athlete,  with  a 
body  symmetrically  developed.  In  the  Pythian  games,  celebrated  at 
Delphi,  it  was  natural  that  contests  with  the  song  pipe  and  lyre,  and 
in  singing  should  be  included  for  the  honor  of  the  god  of  music. 
There  were  no  such  competitions  at  Nemea  or  Olympia  but  poet  and 
rhetorician  there  found  private  audiences  for  their  productions.  The 
prize  at  these  games  was  a  wreath  of  wild  olive,  bay,  or  other  leaves.-" 

The  competitive  struggle,  and  the  glory  and  inspiration  of 
victory.  The  greatest  of  the  festivals,  founded,  men  thought,  for 
his  father  Zeus  by  Heracles,  prince  of  athletes,  are  the  Olympic, 
where  is  "  striving  of  swift  feet  and  of  strong  bodies  brave  to  labor; 
but  he  that  overcometh  hath,  because  of  these  contests,  a  sweet  tran- 
quillity throughout  his  life  for  evermore."  ^^  At  the  close  of  the  com- 
petition, "  the  just  judge  of  games,  fulfilling  Heracles'  behests  of  old, 
lays  upon  the  winner's  hair  above  his  brows  pale-gleaming  glory  of 
olive."  Then  in  the  night  "  following  the  victory  when  the  midmonth 
moon,  riding  her  golden  car,  lit  full  the  counterflame  of  the  eye  of 
Even,  all  the  precinct  sounded  with  the  songs  of  festal  glee,"  in 
honor  of  the  victors.^"  The  triumph  was  celebrated  further  by  pro- 
cessions to  the  temples  and  prayers  of  thanksgiving,  by  feast  and 

20  For  the  character  and  spirit  of  the  games  the  best  source  is  Pindar,  Odes;  also 
Bacchylides,  Odes.  See  too  Paus.  v.  7  ff . ;  vi.  1  ff. ;  Strabo  viii.  3.  30;  ix.  3.  10  (Olympic). 
—  Paus.  X.  7  (originally  the  Pythian  games  consisted  solely  of  music,  to  which  the  ordi- 
nary festal  competitions  were  afterward  successively  added) ;  Hvpoth.  Schol.  Pind.  Pyth.— 
Paus.  i.  44.  8;  ii.  1.  3,  7  (Isthmian).— Strabo  viii.  6.  19;  Paus.  ii.  15.  3;  viii.  48.  2;  x.  25.  7 
(Nemean). 

21  Pind.  Ol  i.  95-100;  cf.  viii.  1  ff. 

22  o;.  iii.   11  ff.;  X.  81-3. 


PANATHENAIC  AMPHORA 
(British  Museum) 


JUMPER  AND  TRAINER 
(Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


148  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

choral  song:  "The  banquet  loveth  peace,  and  by  a  gentle  song  a 
victory  flourisheth  afresh,  and  beside  the  bowl  the  singer's  voice 
waxeth  brave."  ^^  The  games  are,  accordingly,  the  poet's  chief  in- 
spiration: "Thence  cometh  the  glorious  hymn  that  entereth  into 
the  minds  of  the  skilled  in  song."  "*  A  victory  sheds  its  radiance 
over  the  winner's  family,  and  adds  fairest  renown  to  his  state. -'^ 

The  influence  of  the  games.  The  influence  of  the  games  did  not 
limit  itself  to  the  promotion  of  physical  excellence  and  the  cultiva- 
tion of  music  and  poetry.  The  assembly  of  the  Hellenes  took  place 
under  a  sacred  truce,  during  which  the  states,  ceasing  from  war,  culti- 
vated friendship.-**  Merchants  gathered,  especially  at  the  Isthmian 
festival,  to  display  and  sell  their  wares.  Even  more  beneficial  than 
the  exchange  of  material  goods  and  the  fostering  of  commerce  was 
the  intercommunication  of  ideas  and  sentiments  among  the  assembled 
representatives  of  the  entire  Hellenic  world.  This  social  and  intel- 
lectual symposium  generated  a  spirit  of  racial  unity  and  intensified 
the  creative  genius  in  the  fields  of  art  and  intelligence.  While  the 
victory  itself  inspired  the  poet  to  the  comyjosition  of  splendid  tri- 
umphal songs,  the  person  of  the  athlete  furnished  the  sculptor  with 
the  model,  as  well  as  the  motive,  for  the  most  beautiful  statues.  The 
national  games  accordingly  influenced  Greek  life  in  manifold  ways; 
and  especially  the  competitive  spirit  penetrated  and  energized  every 
constructive  element  of  Hellenism. 

Divination.  It  was  natural  that  a  people  whose  whole  life  was 
permeated  by  religion  should  seek  means  of  communicating  with  the 
gods.  So  common  a  use  for  this  purpose  was  made  of  the  flight  of 
birds,  that  the  winged  creature  came  to  designate  any  kind  of 
omen :  — 

An  ox  or  an  ass  that  may  happen  to  pass, 
A  voice  in  the  street  or  a  slave  that  you  meet, 
A  name  or  a  word  by  chance  overheard, 
If  you  deem  it  an  omen,  you  call  it  a  bird.^^ 

Oracles.  All  such  chance  objects  or  occurrences  were  regarded  as 
manifestations  of  the  divine  will.  An  oracle,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
a  fixed  location  and  a  definite  method  of  expression.     Although  the 

23  Find.   Ne7n.  ix.  48  f. 

24  Ol.  i.  8  f. 

25  Pyth.  X.  13  f. ;  Bacch.  Od.  vi.  9  ff . ;  Xenophanes  2  (Bergk),  Plut.  Sol.  23. 

26  Heracleides  of  Pontus,  FHC.  II.  p.  210  3;  Phlegon,  op.  cU.  III.  p.  603.   1. 

27  Aristoph.  Birds,  719  ff. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  149 

Homeric  Greeks  had  little  knovvled.c;e  of  oracles,  we  find  them  wide- 
spread over  Hellas  in  the  period  under  consideration,  and  cannot 
doubt  that  some  of  them  survived  from  the  Minoan  age.  The  most 
venerable  was  that  of  Zeus  at  Dodona,  where  the  god  spoke  through 
the  rustling  of  the  oak  leaves.  Favoring  conditions,  however, 
brought  to  preeminence  the  oracle  of  Apollo  at  Delphi.  His 
prophetess,  the  Pythia,  sitting  on  a  tripod  in  the  inmost  shrine, 
received  from  Apollo  the  answers  she  gave  to  inquirers.  Often  unin- 
telligible, her  mutterings  were  interpreted  to  the  inquirer  by  the 
priests  of  the  god.  The  chief  function  of  the  oracle  was  not  to 
reveal  the  future.  When  it  made  such  a  venture,  the  response  was 
couched  in  ambiguous  terms  so  as  to  be  right  in  any  event.  Thus 
he  who  desired  more  than  was  his  meet  received  an  answer  according 
to  his  folly.  The  god's  advice  was  generally  limited  to  questions  of 
moral  and  religious  conduct  of  individuals  and  states  —  for  instance, 
as  to  what  gods  should  be  worshipped  and  with  what  rites  on  a  given 
occasion,  or  by  what  ceremonies  a  pollution  might  be  removed.  Its 
approval  was  sought  for  the  founding  of  colonies  and  for  other 
important  enterprises.  Sometimes  it  was  bribed;  sometimes  it  showed 
undue  favor  to  a  particular  state  or  political  party.  Notwithstanding 
these  shortcomings,  its  general  reputation  for  honesty  and  wisdom 
long  retained  for  it  the  highest,  though-  by  no  means  absolute,  author- 
ity in  Hellenic  morals  and  religion.-* 

Divination  from  sacrificial  animals.  It  was  not  always  con- 
venient to  go  to  an  oracle;  and  the  bird-omens  came  to  be  thought 
extremely  uncertain.  A  form  of  divination  unknown  to  Hesiod  as 
well  as  to  Homer,  and  evidently  later  than  their  time,  found  its 
omens  in  the  vitals  of  a  sacrificed  animal.  The  system  seems  to 
have  been  introduced  from  Babylonia,  and  was  in  full  force  in  the 
time  of  the  great  war  with  Persia.  The  commander  of  troops  found 
this  method  convenient  because  he  could  easily  resort  to  it  at  any 
time  and  place,  and  perhaps  even  more  because  the  inspection  of 
several  victims  in  quick  succession  would  most  certainly  bring  omens 
favorable  to  his  wishes.  At  last  the  Greeks  were  enabled  to  make 
divination  subserve  the  practical  intelligence.-^ 

28  Dodona;  //.  xvi.  233-5;  Od.  xiv.  327  ff . ;  Aesch.  Prom.  829  ff. ;  Soph.  Track.  1165  ff . ; 
Strabo  vii.  7.  10;  Paus.  vii.  21.  3  f. •  Delphi;  Aesch.  Eumenides;  Eurip.  Ion;  Plut.  Pyth. 
Orac;  Hdt.  i.  46-51,  65-7;  ii.  134  f . ;  iv.  156  f.,  161-3;  v.  42  f . ;  vi.  34  f. ;  vii.  139-43;  viii.  121 
f. ;  Thuc.  i.   118,   126;   Strabo  ix.  3.  5. 

29  It  is  significant  that  at  both  Marathon  and  Plataea  the  omens  became  propitious  pre- 
cisely at  the  most  favorable  moment  for  charging  the  enemy;   Hdt.  vi.   112;   ix.   61   f. 


150  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Systematic  thinking  about  the  world:  cosmogony.  In  the 
general  belief  the  gods,  who  acted  under  individual  caprice,  or  under 
the  influence  of  prayer  and  sacrifice,  were  the  causes  of  all  things 
in  nature  and  the  arbiters  of  human  destiny.  In  the  beginning  the 
clashing  of  divine  wills  wrought  chaos  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  till 
the  dawning  consciousness  of  moral  and  physical  unity  and  order 
led  the  poets  to  devise  a  system  into  which  all  existing  things  might 
have  a  due  part.  With  their  conception  of  the  gods  in  human  form, 
it  was  but  natural  that  they  should  attempt  to  explain  the  multitude 
of  deities,  as  of  men,  and  even  the  plurality  of  all  natural  objects  by 
the  one  process  of  birth.  A  system  so  devised  is  a  cosmogony. 
Hesiod,  our  earliest  exponent  of  this  line  of  thought,  assumes  the 
creation,  he  does  not  say  how,  of  Chaos,  then  Earth.  From  Chaos 
sprang  Erebos  and  black  Night;  and  from  Night  in  turn  sprang 
bright  Ether  and  Day.  And  Earth  bare  starry  Heaven,  Ouranos,  to 
the  end  that  there  might  be  for  the  blessed  gods  a  habitation  steadfast 
forever. ^°  The  youngest  son  of  Earth  and  Heaven,  was  Cronos  of 
crooked  counsels,  of  all  her  children  most  terrible. 

The  supremacy  of  Zeus.  We  need  not  enumerate  the  hosts  of 
supernatural  beings  thus  generated,  of  monstrous  or  lovely  form, 
deadly  or  beneficent,  but  may  pass  on  to  the  birth  of  Zeus,  son  of 
Cronos.  When  he  grew  to  manhood  in  the  rich  island  of  Crete,  he 
conquered  the  Titans  and  other  monstrous  beings,  and  himself  reigned 
supreme.  "  He  was  king  in  heaven,  himself  holding  the  thunder  and 
the  smoking  thunderbolt,  having  by  his  might  overcome  his  father 
Cronos.  And  he  duly  appointed  their  portions  unto  all  the  deathless 
gods  alike,  and  declared  unto  them  their  honors."  ^^ 

From  cosmogony  to  science;  aid  from  Egypt.  In  this  way,  the 
poet  thought,  came  unity,  system,  and  order  from  chaos.  With  the 
accumulation  of  knowledge  and  the  growth  of  an  inquiring  spirit, 
however,  the  Hellenes  would  not  satisfy  themselves  with  such  child- 
like reasoning.  It  was  but  natural  that  the  next  step  should  be 
taken  by  the  lonians,  the  most  enterprising  and  inventive  of  the 
Greeks.  Among  them  were  men  who  visited  Egypt  and  perhaps  other 
parts  of  the  Orient,  not  merely  for  trade,  but  also  for  sight-seeing 

30  Hesiod,   Theogony,  116  ff. 

31  Op.  cit.  71  ff.  • 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  151 

and  instruction.  Among  them  was  Thales  of  Miletus.  In  Egypt  ^^ 
they  learned  such  elementary  science  as  the  priests  cultivated, 
especially  arithmetic,  geometry,  and  astronomy.  The  development  of 
these  branches  of  knowledge,  together  with  the  elements  of  architec- 
ture and  civil  engineering,  had  been  made  posrsible  only  by  the  organ- 
ized priesthoods  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia.  This  knowledge  con- 
sisted purely  of  facts  ascertained  by  experience  and  arbitrarily  classi- 
fied, but  wanting  the  elements  of  reason  and  demonstration;  hence  it 
was  far  from  science  in  the  present  sense  of  the  word.  The  contribu- 
tion of  the  Hellenic  mind,  brilliantly  imaginative  and  untrammeled 
by  religious  or  other  convention,  was  to  pierce  beneath  the  fact 
to  the  underlying  cause,  and  thus  to  create  real  science.  The  first 
step  in  this  process,  taken  by  Thales,  marks  him  as  the  founder,  not 
merely  of  Greek  science,  but  in  the  only  true  sense  of  the  term,  of  the 
world's  science. 

Thales  of  Miletus,  early  sixth  century.  Though  we  can  not 
be  sure  that  everything  ascribed  to  Thales  of  Miletus  was  really  his 
work,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  contributed  greatly  to  mathematics 
and  astronomy.  The  story  that  while  star-gazing  he  fell  into  a 
well  is  told  to  illustrate  the  impracticability  of  the  philosopher.  The 
moral  thus  pointed,  however,  is  nullified  by  another  story  that  he 
speculated  in  olives  on  his  foreknowledge  of  the  weather  and  reaped 
great  profit  from  the  transaction.  It  may  well  be  that  he  foretold  the 
eclipse  of  the  sun,  which  occurred  on  May  28,  585,  though  it  hardly 
seems  possible  that  his  knowledge  enabled  him  to  fix  the  very  day 
and  hour. 

Thales'  philosophic  theory;  its  value.  However  that  may  be, 
his  fame  rests,  not  upon  any  individual  scientific  discovery,  but  upon 
his  new  conception  of  cause.  Accepting  from  the  poets  the  idea  of 
the  unity  of  things  and  the  necessity  of  causation,  he  sought  for  cause, 
not  among  the  gods,  but  in  nature  itself.  Water,  he  declared,  was 
the  one  source  and  substance  of  all  things.  In  his  statement,  too, 
that  the  "  world  is  full  of  gods "  he  seems  to  mean  that  things 
contain  in  themselves  the  conscious  power  to  create  other  things. 
Although  not  wholly  free  from  the  influence  of  mythology,  and  wrong 
in  choosing  a  material  substance  as  his  first  principle,  yet  in  dis- 

32  The  extent  of  Hellenic  borrowing  from  Egypt  has  been  greatly  exaggerated,  e.  g.    by 
Diodorus  i.  98.    Prediction  of  the  eclipse;  Xenophanes,  in  Diog.  Laert.   i.  20. 


152  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

placing  the  gods  by  natural  causation  he  took  the  all-important  step 
from  mythology  and  theology  to  science  and  philosophy.  Within 
the  historical  period  this  change  has  proved  the  most  momentous  revo- 
lution in  the  intellectual  history  of  mankind."^ 

The  Ionic  school:  Anaximander,  middle  of  the  sixth  century. 
The  Ionic  school  of  philosophy,  thus  founded  by  Thales,  sought  the 
first  principle  in  matter.  He  left  no  writings;  but  a  pupil,  Anaxi- 
mander, published  a  scientific  treatise,  probably  the  first  prose  work  in 
the  Greek  language.  His  principle  was  the  "  unlimited,"  evidently 
a  boundless  reservoir  from  which  all  things  come  and  to  which  every- 
thing returns.  In  opposition  to  the  poets  he  thought  out  a  mechanical 
process  for  explaining  the  formation  and  ultimate  destruction  of  the 
existing  world  —  in  fact,  of  an  unending  succession  of  worlds.  Ev- 
olution it  could  not  be  called.  Our  present  earth,  he  taught,  is  a 
cylinder,  whose  upper  surface  we  inhabit.  This  idea,  too,  is  an 
advance  beyond  the  earlier  conception  of  the  world  as  a  round  flat 
disc.  From  information  gathered  by  Ionian  navigators  he  made  the 
first  map  of  the  earth,  and  hence  may  be  regarded  as  the  earliest 
geographer.'* 

Pythagoras.  The  further  history  of  this  school  need  not  concern 
us  here.  A  newer  and  deeper  meaning  was  given  to  philosophy  by 
Pythagoras  of  Samos,  who  in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixth  century 
migrated  to  Croton,  Italy  (522).  Learned  in  the  mathematics  of 
the  Ionian  school,  he  sought  in  numbers  the  primary  cause  of  all 
things,  whether  musical  harmonies,  stellar  movements,  the  nature  of 
the  gods,  or  even  abstract  ideas.  This  attention  to  numbers  gave  a 
great  impetus  to  the  study  of  mathematics,  hence  to  exactness  in 
science;  but  it  was  marred  by  his  attaching  to  numbers  mystical 
powers  alien  to  true  science.  In  fact  Pythagoras  is  distinguished 
as  a  mystic  and  a  moral  reformer  even  more  than  for  his  contribu- 
tion to  science.  With  the  Orphists  he  believed  in  the  transmigration 
of  souls;  their  attainment  to  a  higher  condition  in  a  future  existence 
depended  on  moral  conduct  in  this.  The  chief  aim  of  Pythagoras 
seems  to  have  been  a  life  of  moral  purity,  to  which  philosophy, 
religion,  and  mystic  initiations  were  merely  contributory.  His  school 
was  a  secret  association,  which  extended  to  most  of  the  cities  of 

33  Sources  in  Bakewell,  p.  13;  also  "Thales,"  in  Diog.  Larrt.  i.  As  Thales  wrote  noth- 
ing, our  knowledge  of  him  is  uncertain.  A  complete  collection  of  sources  for  the  philos- 
ODhers  of  this  period  is  Diels,  H.,  Frag,  dcr  Vorsokratiker,  I.   1  ff. 

34  Bakewell,  3-6. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  153 

southern  Italy.  It  cultivated  diatetics  and  medicine;  it  enjoined  a 
life  of  moral  discipline  and  self-restraint.  Taking  a  political  turn 
and  acquiring  the  rule  over  many  states,  these  societies  endeavored  to 
manage  affairs  according  to  their  ethical  standard.  We  must  regard 
the  organization  as  an  element,  both  product  and  factor,  in  the  deep- 
ening religious  and  moral  sense  of  the  period  now  under  considera- 
tion.^^ 

Xenophanes  572-480  (?).  A  further  advance  in  these  general 
philosophic  and  ethical  directions  was  made  by  Xenophanes  of  Colo- 
phon, who  migrated  to  Elca,  Italy,  whence  the  school  he  founded  is 
known  as  Eleatic.  He  indignantly  assails  the  Homeric  conception 
of  the  gods  as  beings  of  human  form,  who  lie  and  steal  and  commit 
such  other  sins  as  would  shame  the  race  of  men.  Beings  of  this  kind 
are  the  creation  of  human  fancy.  The  real  God  is  One,  like  man 
neither  in  form  nor  thought.  "He  is  all  eye,  all  mind,  all  ear;  he 
controls  all  things  without  labor  by  the  power  of  his  thought."  He 
is  eternal,  unchangeable  and  spiritual.  Here  seems  to  be  the  enuncia- 
tion of  a  pure  monotheism.  It  is  clear,  too,  that  this  thinker's  inter- 
est centres  in  moral  improvement.  He  chides  his  fellow-citizens  of 
Colophon  for  having  adopted  the  luxurious  habits  of  the  Lydians: 
"  They  throng  the  market-place  by  thousands  in  purj^le  gowns,  with 
hair  well-adorned,  their  bodies  dripping  with  fragrant  oils."  It  is 
the  duty  of  sensible  men,  when  they  gather  at  banquets,  to  pray  God 
to  give  us  power  to  do  justice.  His  God  therefore  is  a  moral  force; 
and  the  author  of  the  poems  cited  here  was  as  much  theologian  and 
moral  reformer  as  philosopher.  He  could  look  forward  with  good 
hope,  believing  that  "  the  powers  above  have  not  revealed  to  men  all 
things  from  the  beginning,  but  that  mortals  by  searching  gradually 
find  out  the  better."  ^^ 

Improved  conceptions  of  virtue.  Intellectual  progress  connected 
itself  on  one  side  with  advancing  religion,  on  the  other  with  moral 
development.  A  better  conception  of  virtue  arose.  It  was  no  longer 
physical  perfection  or  the  free  gift  of  the  gods,  as  in  Homer,  but 
had  come  to  mean  especially  moral  excellence,  which  men  had  to  strive 
for.  "  It  is  hard  to  be  a  worthy  man  "  ^'  now  seems  trite  but  was 
then  a  fresh,  stimulating  truth.  To  maintain  this  character  one  had 
to  exercise  "self-restraint"    (sophrosyne).     This  was  a  new  word 

35  Bakewell,  36-42. 

3r>  Bakewell,   8-11. 

V7  Pittacus  of  Mytilene,  in   Plat.  Protag.  339  c. 


154  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

in  the  Greek  vocabulary,  yet  one  involving  the  most  imperative  of 
Hellenic  commandments.  It  was  no  small  gain  that  in  this  struggle 
for  moral  improvement  man  should  now  have  the  gods  as  helpers, 
better  examples  of  purity  and  right  than  those  of  Homer  and  de- 
manding in  the  worshipper  clean  hands  and  an  upright  heart. ""^ 

Improvements  in  domestic  and  in  interstate  law.  Moral 
progress  showed  itself  in  the  better  safeguarding  of  domestic  peace 
by  the  establishment  of  competent  courts  for  homicide  and  the  abo- 
lition of  the  blood  feud,  by  the  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
women,  involving  the  abolition  of  marriage  by  capture  and  purchase, 
and  in  the  better  protection  of  the  masses  from  the  brutality  of  aristo- 
cratic rule.  In  interstate  relations  piracy,  once  creditable,  had  fallen 
into  disgrace,  and  was  greatly  limited  by  the  rise  of  naval  powers. 
In  place  of  those  undefined  relations  between  states,  which,  void  of 
treaty  and  diplomatic  representation,  constantly  tempted  to  hostilities, 
written  truces,  usually  for  a  definite  number  of  years,  were  substi- 
tuted, and  proved  an  invaluable  aid  to  peace.  Often  states  sub- 
mitted their  disputes  to  arbitration,  and  in  all  the  known  cases  of 
this  period  both  parties  accepted  the  decision.  More  primitive  in 
character,  though  but  little  less  humane,  was  the  custom  of  settling 
controversies  through  the  battle  of  champions  still  occasionally  em- 
ployed. Generally  captives  were  not  massacred  as  in  earlier  time,  but 
held  for  ransom  or  at  the  worst  enslaved.  The  bodies  of  the  dead 
were  no  longer  mutilated  or  left  "  a  prey  to  dogs  and  birds,"  but  were 
given  back  by  the  victors  under  a  truce.  As  a  rule,  however,  Greeks 
showed  far  greater  humanity  toward  their  own  race  than  toward 
foreigners,  whom  they  contemptuously  termed  barbarians.  In  brief, 
a  body  of  Hellenic  law  was  developing,  which,  under  religious  sanc- 
tions, regulated  the  relations  among  the  states  of  Hellas. ^^ 

Multiplication  of  ethical  proverbs.     Examples  of  ethical  truths 

38  Homeric  conception  of  virtue;  //.  xx.  2-12  f . ;  Od.  xviii.  251  f.  A  newer  idea;  Hesiod, 
Works,  289  ff . ;  Solon  15  (Bergk);  Phocylides  17  (Bergk):  "Justice  comprises  every  vir- 
tue." Archilochus  teaches  self-restraint;  cf.  25  (translated  p.  128  above);  66  (Bergk).  The 
gods  as  moral  helpers;   Simonides  61   (Bergk). 

39  Domestic  peace  and  protection  of  the  commons;  p.  110,  112.  Piracy;  p.  27;  Thuc.  i. 
5,  13.  5  (put  down  by  Corinth").  The  primitive  relation  between  states  was  not  essen- 
tially hostile,  as  some  have  asserted,  but  indefinite,  as  set  forth  above.  One  origin  of  the 
treaty  may  be  found  in  the  guest-friendships  of  tribal  chiefs,  another  in  the  temporary 
truces  of  armies.  Earliest  extant  treaty;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  9  (550-500  B.  C).  Early 
cases  of  arbitration:  Between  Chalcis  and  Andros  over  the  possession  of  a  site  for  a  col- 
ony about  650);  Plut.  Q.  G.  30.  Between  Athens  and  Mcgara;  Plut.  Sol.  10.  Between 
Athens  and  Mytilene;  Hdt.  v.  95;  Strabo  xiii.  1.  38  f.  Between  Athens  and  Thebes;  Hdt. 
vi.   108.     Agreement  among  the  lonians  to  submit  their  disputes  to  arbitration;  Hdt.  vi.  42. 

Battle  of  champions  in  the  Middle  Age;  //.  vii.  29  ff.  At  Sigeum;  Strabo  xiii.  1.  38. 
oners,  //.  vii.  375  ff . ;  Archilochus  64  (Bergk);  Hdt.   ix.  78  f . ;  Plat.  Rep.  v.  469  d. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING  155 

may  be  found  in  the  moral  proverbs  of  the  Seven  Sages,  among  whom 
were  Thales  and  Solon.  "  Know  thyself,"  "  Everything  in  modera- 
tion." "  It  is  hard  to  be  a  good  man,"  and  other  such  proverbs 
attril)uted  to  them,  were  accepted  as  inspired  rules  of  life.  Hesiod 
is  the  first  who  collected  a  moral  code,  and  after  him  the  elegiac  and 
lyric  poets  abound  in  moral  saws.  In  fact  the  Greeks  had  come  to 
be  a  moralizing  people.  Doubtless  such  proverbs  were  a  great  aid  to 
right. 

Briefly  it  may  be  said  that  throughout  this  period,  legislator,  poet, 
scientific  thinker,  and  practical  sage  in  their  several  ways  were  exert- 
ing themselves  for  the  moral  improvement  of  mankind. *° 

The  beginnings  of  historical  thought.  It  remains  to  notice  the 
view  at  this  time  coming  to  be  taken  of  mankind's  past.  Little  detail 
is  given  of  the  creation  of  human  beings.  Hesiod  simply  informs  us 
of  the  "  golden  race  "  which  the  immortals  originally  produced,  a 
race  that  knew  no  toil  or  sorrow  or  death,  but  passed  away  in  sleep 
to  become  good  Spirits,  eternal  guardians  of  mortal  men.  Then 
ensued  a  silver  race  of  inferior  men  acquainted  with  sin  and  grief, 
then  a  brazen  race,  warlike  and  insolent,  slain  by  one  another's  hands, 
went  down  to  the  realm  of  Hades.  Then  came  the  juster  race  of 
heroes,  who  having  fought  round  Troy,  were  gathered  to  the  Islands 
of  the  Blest.  Lastly  arose  the  race  of  iron,  among  whom  the  poet  lived. 
"  Neither  by  day  shall  they  ever  cease  from  weariness  and  woe,  neither 
in  the  night  from  wasting;  and  sore  cares  shall  the  gods  give  them."  ^^ 
The  idea  of  an  original  golden  age  of  moral  purity  and  physical  per- 
fection, from  which  mankind  fell,  has  a  large  place  in  the  history  of 
ancient  thought. 

How  the  Greeks  viewed  the  origin  of  their  race.  As  to  their 
own  race,  the  Greeks  of  this  period  claimed  to  trace  it  from  Prome- 
theus, the  heroic  friend  of  man.  His  son  was  Deucalion,  who  with 
his  wife  Pyrrha  were  alone  saved  at  the  time  of  the  great  flood. 
They  were  the  parents  of  Hellen,  the  eponym  of  the  Hellenes.  It 
was  not  until  the  time  of  Hesiod  that  the  Greeks  had  become  suf- 
ficiently conscious  of  their  ethnic  unity  to  group  themselves  thus 
under  a  single  name.  Hellen's  sons  were  Dorus,  Xuthos,  and  Aeolus. 
By  assuming  that  Xuthos  had  two  sons,  Achaeus  and  Ion,  the  Greeks 
of  this  period  accounted  for  the  names  of  the  four  races  —  Dorians, 

40  Seven  Sages;  Plat.  Protag.  343  a.  Moral  code;  Hesiod,   Works,  707  ff. 

41  Hesiod,  Works,  107  ff.   . 


156  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Achaeans,  lonians,  and  Aeolians  —  most  prominent  in  early  Hellenic 
histor>\  Such  eponyms  were  originally  considered  ancestors  of  their 
races,  but  came  in  time  to  be  regarded  as  kings. *^ 

The  beginnings  of  historical  and  geographical  literature. 
The  process  of  weaving  genealogies  did  not  stop  at  the  point  above 
mentioned.  Founders  of  cities,  ruling  dynasties,  and  individual 
gentes  had  all  to  trace  their  pedigrees  back  to  some  hero  and 
through  him  to  one  of  the  greater  gods.*^  In  an  aristocratic  society 
it  was  but  natural  that  the  interest  in  the  past  should  centre  in  pedi- 
grees and  project  itself  beyond  recent  generations  to  the  beginnings  of 
races  and  families.  Among  the  genealogy-mongers,  who  swarmed 
in  every  city,  were  a  few  who  committed  their  results  to  writing. 
The  earliest  genealogist  known  to  us  by  name  was  Cadmos  of  Mile- 
tus, a  contemporary  of  Anaximander,  and  author  of  the  Settlement  of 
Ionia  (about  550).  The  first  Genealogies  to  survive  to  the  present 
day  are  those  of  Acusilaus  of  Argos  (about  500).**  Such  authors 
are  described  as  logographi,  "  writers  of  prose."  They  merely  con- 
verted into  prose,  extended,  and  systematized  the  existing  genealogical 
epics.  They  were  the  brood  of  Hesiod,  with  the  wings  of  their  im- 
agination clipped  by  the  limitations  of  prose,  with  reason  wider-awake, 
with  a  nascent  critical  power.  The  most  eminent  of  the  class  was 
Hecataeus  of  Miletus,  who  took  an  active  part  in  public  affairs  during 
the  Ionian  revolt.  His  Genealogies  must  have  contained,  in  addition 
to  myths,  some  historical  information  and  his  Description  of  the  Earth 
was  for  its  day  a  geography  of  distinguished  merit.  An  awakening 
consciousness  of  the  distinction  between  myth  and  fact  is  proved  by 
his  own  words:  "  I  write  what  I  believe  to  be  true;  for  the  various 
stories  of  the  Hellenes  are,  in  my  opinion,  ridiculous."  *^  The  logo- 
graphi, among  whom  he  is  numbered,  were  the  connecting  link  be- 

42  In  Homer's  time  Hellas  was  the  realm  of  Achilles,  a  little  country  in  southern  Thes- 
saly  (//.  ii.  683  f. ;  ix.  478  f . ;  Strabo  ix.  5.  6);.  but  in  the  age  of  Hesiod  it  had  so  extended 
as  to  comprise  the  country  of  all  the  Greeks;  cf.  Strabo  viii.  6.  6.  Hellen  and  his  three 
sons;  Hesiod,  Frag.  32.  Evidently  Achaeus  and  Ion  were  originally  unconnected  with 
Hellen,  but  were  brought  into  the  genealogical  tree  by  means  of  Xuthus.  Ancestors,  after- 
ward kings;  Arist.  Mctaphys.  iv.  Obviously  this  pedigree  is  but  a  crude  atternpt  to  ex- 
plain the  Hellenic  races,  whereas  the  only  scientific  approach  to  the  subject  is  through 
a  study  of  the  dialects. 

4.-!  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  Medontidae  of  Athens  (p.  103)  were  given  an  ancestor 
Codrus,  who  was  also  represented  as  the  ancestor  of  dynasties  in  various  Ionic  states,  with 
a  view  to  connecting  Athens  with  Ionia.  From  Codus  the  genealogists  continued  the  list 
of  .Athenian  kings  back  to  Cecrops,  by  the  insertion  chiefly  of  cult  names;  Euseb.  Citron. 
p.  85-7.     It  is  clear  that  the  value  of  the  list  is  psychological  rather  than  historical. 

44  Cadmos  of  Miletus;  Strabo  i.  2.  6;  Pliny,  N.  H.  v.  112.  No  writings  have  survived, 
and  this  circumstance  has  led  .some  to  doubt  his  existence.  Acusilaus  of  Argos;  FHG.  I.  p. 
100  ff. ;  H.  Civ.  no.  16;  cf.  p.  20. 

4.T  Hdt.  iv.  36.  Remaining  fragments  of  Hecataeus;  FEG.  I.  p.  1  ff. ;  H.  Civ.  no.  16;  cf, 
p.  21. 


INTELLECTUAL  AWAKENING 


157 


tween  epic  poetry  and  history,  owing  the  equipment  of  their  minds 
to  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  sixth  century  —  the  children  of 
Hesiod,  so  to  speak,  and  school-fellows  with  the  earliest  philosophers. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Holm  I,  ch.  xxiv;  Curtius  II,  ch.  iv;  Beloch  I,  1,  chs.  xi,  xvi ;  Bury,  177- 
180,  198-205,  311-321;  Stobart,  Glory  that  was  Greece  (Sedgwick  &  Jackson, 
2nd  ed.,  rev.  1915),  ch.  iii;  Fairbanks,  Greek  Religion  (American  Book  Co., 
1910)  ;  Moore,  Religious  Thought  among  the  Greeks  (Harvard  University 
Press,  1916)  ;  Gardner,  Greek  Games  and  Athletic  Festivals  (Macmillan,  1910)  ; 
Gardner,  Handbook  of  Greek  Sculpture;  Fowler  and  Wheeler,  Handbook  of 
Greek  Archaeology ;  Weller,  Ancient  Athens;  Raeder,  L' Arbitrage  internationale 
chez  les  Hellenes  (Putnam,  1912)  ;  Phiilipson,  The  International  Law  and  Cus- 
tom of  Ancient  Greece  and  Rome  (Macmillan,  1911);  Croiset,  Hist,  de  la  lit. 
grecque,  II,  ch.  ix;  Bury,  Ancient  Greek  Historians,  ch.  i,  Dickinson,  Greek  View 
of  Life  (Harper,  1910),  ch.  i. 


BASE  OF  TRIPOD 


CHAPTER  X 

CONQUEST  OF  THE  ASIATIC  GREEKS  BY  THE  LYDIANS 

AND  THE  PERSIANS 

560-493 

Character  of  Ionian  political  history.  It  is  a  strange  yet  char- 
acteristic fact  that  the  growth  of  the  brilliant  Ionian  culture  reviewed 
in  the  preceding  chapters  was  accompanied,  as  cause  and  effect,  by 
continued  wars  among  the  states  which  produced  this  splendid,  versa- 
tile life,  and  by  fiercer  factional  struggles  within  the  individual  cities. 
One  example  of  internal  conflict  will  suffice.  In  Milesian  territory 
the  tillers  of  the  soil  were  Gergithae,  a  class  of  serfs,  who  rebelled 
against  their  lords,  and  gaining  the  upper  hand  but  momentarily,  col- 
lected the  young  children  of  their  masters  on  threshing  floors,  and 
crushed  them  under  the  hoofs  of  oxen.  Regaining  control,  the  lords 
smeared  the  captive  Gergithae  with  pitch  and  burned  them  alive.  So 
deadly  was  the  antipathy  of  classes.^  Everywhere  the  primitive 
kingship  had  passed  away.  In  some  states  aristocracy  survived;  in 
others  democracy  had  gained  the  upper  hand;  but  in  the  general 
internal  weakness  the  republics  were  giving  way,  one  after  another, 
to  tyranny.  Civil  discord  and  interstate  warfare,  while  stimulating 
the  mind  to  intense  productivity,  rendered  the  Asiatic  Greeks  wholly 
unfit  to  defend  themselves  against  foreign  aggression.^ 

Lydia  and  the  Anatolian  Greeks.  The  need  of  united  action 
increased  with  the  growth  of  Lydia  in  the  interior  of  Asia  Minor  to 
a  strong  aggressive  power  under  King  Gyges  (about  660).  That 
country  was  rich  in  gold;  and  the  inhabitants,  by  manufacturing  and 
by  overland  trade  with  Asia,  had  accumulated  .great  wealth.  The 
delicacies  of  their  life,  however,  afforded  little  hindrance  to  the  policy 
of  conquest  adopted  by  Gyges.     It  was  probably   in   resistance  to 

1  H.  Civ.  no.  53  (Heracleides  of  Pontus) ;  cf.  Hdt.  v.  28  f. 

2  A  contemporary  of  this  period  was  Hecataeus  of  Miletus  (p.  156  above);  H.  Civ.  p. 
21,  111  f.),  who  was  actively  interested  in  public  affairs.  Brief  fragments  of  his  Genealo- 
gies have  survived;  FHG.  I.  p.  25-31.  Most  important  is  Herodotus,  especially  parts  of 
bks.  i,  v,  vi.  Later  is  Ctesias,  Persica  (about  'lOO  B.  C),  drawn  from  Persian  sources. 
Still  later  and  less  valuable  is  Justin  i,  ii.  Nepos,  Miltiades;  Themistocles,  and  Plutarch, 
Theniistocles,  afford  slight  information. 

158 


CONQUEST  OF  ASIATIC  GREECE  159 

Lydian  aggression  that  twelve  cities  of  Ionia  joined  in  a  league,  whose 
centre  was  the  Panionion,  a  shrine  of  Poseidon  on  the  promontory 
of  Alycale.  In  a  si)irit  of  cxclusiveness  they  styled  themselves 
groundlessly  the  only  true  lonians  and  would  admit  no  other  states  to 
their  union.  The  Aeolians  and  the  Dorians  of  Asia  Minor  formed 
similar  leagues,  but  the  idea  of  inviting  all  the  Asiatic  Greeks  under 
a  single  government  seems  to  have  occurred  to  no  one.  On  critical 
occasions  the  deputies  of  the  allied  Ionian  states  met  at  the  Panionion 
to  deliberate  on  the  common  welfare;  but  the  central  government 
possessed  no  means  of  enforcing  harmonious  or  efficient  action. 

Lydian  conquest  of  the  Greeks.  Under  these  circumstances 
Gyges  ^  succeeded  in  taking  Colophon,  one  of  their  cities.  The  con- 
quest was  completed  by  Croesus,  a  later  king  (about  560-546),  who 
incorporated  the  Greeks  of  the  Asiatic  coast  in  his  realm.  Miletus 
alone,  which  had  taken  no  part  in  the  resistance,  remained  an  ally 
under  treaty.  In  far  earlier  times  the  Lydians  had  given  the  Greeks 
their  useful  arts,  and  were  now  adopting  the  Hellenic  culture. 
Though  differing  in  language,  the  two  peoples  were  coming  therefore 
to  possess  essentially  the  same  civilization,  and  were  closely  allied  in 
commercial  and  social  intercourse.  Croesus  made  the  burden  of  his 
tribute  on  the  Greeks  light  and  favored  their  shrines  with  rich  votive 
offerings.  Under  him  Lydia  reached  the  height  of  her  prosperity  and 
attained  to  the  magnitude  of  an  empire.  To  the  tributes  which 
poured  in  from  all  the  peoples  west  of  the  Halys  river,  was  added  a 
rich  gold  revenue  from  the  sands  of  the  Pactolus.  Relying  on  his 
material  resources,  the  prosperous  king  made  ready  to  contend  with 
the  Persian  empire,  newly  arisen  on  his  eastern  border.* 

The  Assyrian  empire,  to  606.  From  about  the  beginning  of  the 
Middle  Age  the  great  power  of  Asia  had  been  Assyria.  Early  in 
the  seventh  century  she  had  conquered  Egypt.  After  this  event  her 
empire  extended  from  above  Memphis  on  the  Nile  nearly  to  the 
Caspian  sea,  and  from  the  Persian  gulf  to  the  Black  sea.  This  was 
the  first  conquering  state  to  follow  a  systematic  policy  of  organiza- 
tion. She  divided  her  subject  territories  into  provinces  —  satrapies 
—  each  under  a  governor,  or  satrap,  appointed  by  the  Assyrian  king, 

3  Gyges;  Archilochus  25  (p.  127  above);  Hdt.  I.  14;  Euseb.  Chron.  p.  ii,  183.  Ionian 
league;   Hdt.   i.   141   ff.,   146-8,   170;  vi.   7. 

4  Colophon  taken;  Hdt.  i.  14.  Further  conquests;  15  ff.  Completed  by  Croesus;  25  f. 
Tribute;  6,  27.  Cultural  similarities;  94.  Gold;  39.  Patronage  of  Greek  shrines;  50-52,  54, 
92.    Miletus  an  ally;  22,  141.    Croesus'  military  ambition;  46,  53. 


160  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  functions  of  the  satrap  were  military,  judicial,  and  general 
administrative,  including  a  supervision  of  the  tributes.  Under  him 
were  native  kings,  who  enjoyed  far  less  freedom  than  had  been 
possible  in  earlier  and  more  loosely  organized  empires.  It  was  also 
the  policy  of  the  central  government  to  transplant  great  numbers  of 
the  newly  conquered  from  one  part  of  the  empire  to  another,  with  a 
view  to  uprooting  local  patriotism  and  of  making  the  subject  peoples 
more  dependent.  A  state  so  thoroughly  predatory  in  its  aims  is 
doomed  sooner  or  later  to  decay.  Thus  it  happened  that  in  606  the 
Assyrian  capital,  Nineveh,  was  taken  by  a  combination  of  the  highly 
civilized  Babylonians  with  the  Medes,  a  fresh  virile  Indo-European 
people.^ 

The  Median  and  Persian  empires,  605-546.  Thence  arose  two 
empires:  the  Babylonian  on  the  south  of  hither  Asia,  and  the  Median 
in  the  north.  The  latter  included  Persia,  and  by  rapid  conquest 
extended  its  western  border  to  the  Halys  river.  With  this  boundary 
the  Medes  might  have  been  satisfied;  but  suddenly  (550),  their  king 
was  overthrown  by  an  uprising  of  the  Persians  under  Cyrus.  This 
revolution,  making  the  Median  empire  Persian,  placed  in  control  a 
still  more  vigorous,  aggressive  Indo-European  race  of  mountaineers 
under  a  leader  of  extraordinary  genius  and  ambition.  Cyrus  defeated 
Croesus  in  two  battles,  seized  Sardis,  his  capital,  and  took  the  proud 
king  captive.     Lydia  became  a  part  of  the  Persian  empire   (546).® 

The  Persian  conquest  of  the  Anatolian  Greeks,  546-538.  The 
Aeolians  and  lonians  were  loth  to  exchange  their  benevolent  king  for 
the  new  Persian  conqueror.  Having  treated  his  messengers  coldly 
at  the  beginning  of  tlie  war,  they  now  sought  from  him  the  same  terms 
of  subjection  as  they  had  received  from  Croesus.  He  refused,  where- 
upon they  began  to  wall  their  towns;  and  calling  a  council  at  the 
Panionion,  the  lonians  resolved  to  ask  the  aid  of  Sparta,  now  the 
strongest  power  in  Greece.  The  Lacedaemonians  could  not  think  of 
so  distant  an  enterprise.  It  is  said,  however,  that  they  sent  an 
embassy  to  warn  Cyrus  at  his  peril  not  to  harm  any  city  of  Hellas. 
The  Persian  king  treated  the  message  with  contempt.  Harpagus,  his 
lieutenant  intrusted  with  the  work  of  conquering  the  Greeks,  laid 
siege  to  their  cities  one  by  one  and  captured  them.  Unwilling  to 
submit,  the  Phocaeans  sailed  away  in  a  body  to  found  a  colony  in 

5  Breasted,   Ancient   Times,   141  ff. ;   Hall,  Anc.  History,   Index  under  Assyria. 

6  Hdt.  i.  76-91 ;   Justin  i.  4-8. 


CONQUEST  OF  ASIATIC  GREECE  161 

Corsica.  In  like  manner  the  people  of  Teos,  abandoning  their  city, 
founded  Abdera,  in  Thrace.  The  rest  of  the  lonians,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Milesians,  who  had  allied  themselves  with  Cyrus,  sub- 
mitted; and  most  of  the  neighboring  islands  followed  their  example. 
Gradually  all  Asia  Minor  was  conquered  and  incorporated  in  the 
Persian  empire.  Meantime  after  conquering  Babylon,  Cyrus  met 
death  in  battle  with  the  barbarians  on  his  northeastern  frontier.'' 

Darius,  521-485.  Organization  of  the  empire.  During  the 
reign  of  Cambyses,  son  and  successor  of  Cyrus  (529-522),  the 
Persians  made  no  great  extension  of  their  territory  to  the  west,  but 
directed  themselves  mainly  to  the  acquisition  of  Egypt.  Cambyses 
died  by  a  self-inflicted  wound,*  and  after  a  brief  interval  Darius,  a 
distant  relative,  came  to  the  throne.  This  king  is  famous  chiefly  for 
his  organization  of  the  empire.  Enlarging  on  a  policy  begun  by 
Cyrus,  he  divided  the  entire  area  excepting  Persia,  into  twenty  large 
satrapies.  The  Persian  satrap  had  essentially  the  same  functions 
as  the  Assyrian  officer  of  that  title  had  formerly  exercised.  Natu- 
rally the  king  interfered  at  will  in  all  local  affairs.  A  necessary  ele- 
ment of  control  is  to  be  found  in  the  splendid  system  of  well-kept 
roads  which  Darius  built  from  his  capital  Susa  to  all  important  points 
on  the  frontier.  The  "  King's  Eye,"  a  near  relative  of  the  sovereign, 
invested  with  great  dignity  and  military  power,  served  as  a  royal 
inspector.  Not  only  the  roads  but  also  an  excellent  system  of  gold 
and  silver  coins  favored  the  growth  of  commerce.  At  the  same  time 
Darius  took  great  pains  to  preserve  internal  peace  and  protect  his 
empire  from  invasion.  The  government  was  less  predatory  in  aim 
than  that  of  Assyria  and  we  find  in  Darius  a  rare  benevolence  toward 
his  subjects.^ 

The  place  of  the  Greeks  in  the  empire.  All  the  Greeks  on  the 
Aegean  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  together  with  some  neighboring  peoples, 
constituted  the  Ionian  satrapy.  It  was  placed  under  an  officer  who, 
from  his  capital  Sardis,  governed  also  the  Lydian  satrapy.  The 
Asiatic  Greeks  paid  tribute  to  the  Persian  king,  as  they  formerly  had 
to  Croesus;  and  in  addition  they  were  required  to  perform  military 
and  naval  service.  The  conqueror  did  not  interfere  with  their  re- 
ligion or  their  habits  of  life  or  their  city  organizations,  but  every- 

7  Hdt.   i.   141-214. 

8  Hdt.   ii.   1 ;   iii.   1-66. 

9  Hdt.   iii.    R4-lf)0.     Darius'   account  of  the  organization;    Botsford,   Source-Book,   p.    55-7. 
Of  his  own  achievements;  p.  57-9;  Behistan  Inscr.  ed.  Tolman  N.   Y.   (1908). 


162  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

where  set  up  tyrants  devoted  to  himself.  The  Greeks,  however,  were 
no  longer  the  favored  people  of  their  king.  In  fact  no  cultural  or 
religious  sympathies  were  possible  between  Hellenes  and  Persians,  a 
far  less  civilized  people,  whose  religion  knew  no  images  or  gay  festivi- 
ties but  consisted  in  an  eternal  warfare  between  good  and  evil. 
Greeks,  too,  were  humiliated  by  their  insignificant  place  in  a  gigantic 
empire,  which  embraced  the  east-Mediterranean  countries,  and  ex- 
tended into  India  and  central  Asia.  Their  land  forces  marched  with 
the  motley  army  of  Asiatics  and  their  fleets  were  arrayed  with  those 
of  Phoenicia  and  Egypt  under  officers  of  the  king.  Their  new 
position  gave  them  internal  peace,  protection  from  enemies,  and 
the  advantages  of  commerce  with  the  Orient  by  land  and  sea,  but 
irritated  their  pride  and  repressed  their  genius,  which  could  only 
thrive  in  freedom.^'' 

Invasion  of  Europe  by  Darius,  about  513.  The  empire  was  ex- 
posed on  the  northwestern  frontier  to  the  raids  of  the  nomad 
Scythians,  who  occupied  the  region  north  of  the  Black  Sea.  After 
trying  in  vain  to  check  the  inroads,  Darius  seems  to  have  conceived 
the  idea  of  attacking  these  restless  enemies  in  their  rear,  from  the 
European  side,  and  perhaps  of  conquering  them  in  a  return  march 
through  their  country.  If  so,  he  must  have  greatly  underrated  the 
difficulties  of  the  expedition.  However  that  may  be,  he  led  a  great 
army  across  the  Bosphorus  on  a  bridge  of  boats  prepared  for  by  a 
Samian  architect.  Thence  he  marched  to  the  Danube,  which  he 
crossed  on  a  similar  bridge  made  from  the  fleets  of  the  Ionian  tyrants. 
As  the  Scythians  would  not  meet  Darius  in  open  battle  but  harassed 
his  army  interminably,  and  as  provisions  and  water  were  insufficient, 
the  invasion  of  Scythia  ended  in  disaster.  With  great  loss  Darius 
retreated  into  Asia.  One  of  his  generals,  however,  Megabazus,  left 
behind  with  80,000  men,  conquered  the  Thracian  coast  from  the 
Propontis  to  the  Strymon  river." 

Relations  between  Persia  and  Athens.  The  positive  result  of 
the  Scythian  expedition  was,  accordingly,  the  conquest  by  Darius  of  a 
part  of  European  Hellas.  There  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  Persians, 
following  their  usual  policy,  would  endeavor  continually  to  push  their 
boundary  forward  in  this  direction.     The  people  of  the  Greek  main- 

10  Military  service;  Hdt.  i.  171;  ii.   1;   iii.  1.     Religious  freedom;  H.  Civ.  no.  32  (letter  of 
Darius).     Tyrants;   Hdt.  iv.   137;   Heracleides  of  Pontus.  FHG.   II.  p.  217.   II. 

11  Hdt.   iv.   1-144;   v.   1-24.     The  estimate  (iv.   87)  of  Darius'   army  at   700,000  is  certainly 
a  great  e.xaggeration.     That  there  were  600  ships  is  more  probable. 


A  PERSIAN  ARCHER 


THE  PALACE  OF  DARIUS 


164  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

land  who  most  sensitively  felt  the  approaching  danger  were  the 
Athenians;  for  their  two  colonies  in  the  Hellespontic  region  —  Sigeum 
and  Chersonesus  —  were  now  lost  to  them  through  Persian  aggres- 
sion. They  knew,  too,  that  their  exiled  tyrant  Hippias,  now  at 
Sigeum  but  hoping  to  be  restored  through  Persian  aid,  was  doing  his 
utmost  to  persuade  Artaphernes,  satrap  of  Sardis,  to  an  expedition 
against  Athens.  When  some  years  earlier  the  Athenians  had  expelled 
their  tyrant  and  had  restored  a  republican  form  of  government,  they 
were  assailed  by  the  Peloponnesians.  Under  these  circumstances 
they  had  sent  ambassadors  to  Sardis  to  seek  an  alliance  with  Persia. 
Artaphernes  expressed  his  willingness  on  condition  of  their  giving 
Darius  earth  and  water,  the  tokens  of  submission.  They  agreed;  but 
on  returning  home  they  were  severely  censured  and  their  promise  was 
repudiated.  Hearing  now  of  the  machinations  of  Hippias,  they  sent 
a  second  embassy,  to  counteract  his  influence.  Artaphernes  abruptly 
ordered  them  to  receive  Hippias  back,  if  they  wished  to  escape  ruin. 
Thereupon  the  Athenians,  who  had  no  idea  of  accepting  the  pro- 
posal, felt  that  a  state  of  war  existed  between  them  and  Persia.^' 

Causes  of  the  Ionic  revolt:  Aristagoras  at  Sparta.  No  long 
time  afterward  Aristagoras,  tyrant  of  IMiletus,  took  advantage  of 
party  strife  in  Naxos  to  attempt  the  conquest  of  that  island.  By 
holding  out  great  promises  he  enlisted  the  aid  of  Artaphernes.  The 
enterprise  failed,  and  the  tyrant  could  only  expect  the  severest  pun- 
ishment for  his  broken  word.  His  sole  way  of  escape  led  through 
revolt.  To  him  it  was  clear  that  the  Asiatic  Greeks  were  chafing 
under  Persian  rule  and  ready  on  the  slightest  pretext  to  strike  for 
liberty.  Hecataeus,  the  historian  and  geographer,  warned  them  of 
the  overwhelming  superiority  of  Persia.  They  paid  him  no  heed, 
but  readily  followed  Aristagoras  in  revolt.^ ^ 

The  Ionic  revolt,  499-494:  Aristagoras  at  Sparta.  Abdicating 
his  tyranny  and  accepting  a  constitutional  office,  Aristagoras  pro- 
ceeded to  overthrow  the  despots  in  the  remaining  Ionic  cities.  All 
Ionia  was  soon  free  from  tyranny  and  committed  to  a  hopeless  rebel- 
lion. Aristagoras  went  personally  to  Lacedaemon  to  ask  for  an  alli- 
ance. Herodotus  represents  him  as  appealing  to  King  Cleomenes  in 
the  following  terms:  "  That  the  sons  of  the  lonians  should  be  slaves 
instead  of  free  is  a  reproach  and  grief  most  of  all  indeed  to  ourselves, 

12  Hdt.  V.  73  f.,  96. 

13  Hdt.  V.  30-5. 


CONQUEST  OF  ASIATIC  GREECE  165 

but  of  all  others  most  to  you,  inasmuch  as  ye  are  the  leaders  of  Hellas. 
Now  therefore  I  entreat  you  by  the  gods  of  Hellas  to  rescue  from 
slavery  the  lonians,  who  are  your  own  kinsmen.  And  ye  may  easily 
achieve  this  thing,  for  the  Barbarians  are  not  brave  in  tight,  whereas 
ye  have  attained  to  the  highest  point  of  valor  in  war.  Furthermore 
their  fighting  is  with  bows  and  arrows  and  a  short  spear,  and  they  go 
into  battle  wearing  trousers.  For  this  reason  they  are  easily  con- 
quered." Then  in  detail  he  pointed  out,  on  the  map  he  had  brought 
with  him,  the  road  from  the  Ionian  coast  to  Susa,  and  described  the 
wealth  that  would  fall  to  the  conqueror.  Cleomenes,  an  ambitious 
king,  seems  to  have  been  personally  favorable  to  the  undertaking; 
but  the  Lacedaemonians  could  not  think  of  so  distant  an  expedition. 
The  arguments  and  bribes  of  the  smooth  Ionian  were  accordingly 
rejected.^* 

Aristagoras  at  Athens.  Thereupon  Aristagoras  went  to  Athens, 
where  he  found  conditions  more  favorable  to  himself.  Losses  of  ter- 
ritory and  the  threats  of  Artaphernes  had  stirred  the  Athenians  to 
anger.  Furthermore  the  men  who  supported  the  reforms  of  Cleis- 
thenes,  who  hated  tyranny  and  stood  loyally  for  the  independence  of 
the  city,  forming  what  we  may  describe  as  the  republican  party,  were 
willing  to  try  the  issue  of  war  with  Persia.  It  was  better  to  fight  at  a 
distance  and  with  allies  than  to  bear  alone  the  shock  of  inevitable 
invasion.  Their  kinship  and  commercial  relations  with  Ionia  led 
them  in  the  same  direction.  They  resolved  therefore  to  send  twenty 
ships,  which  were  reinforced  by  two  from  Eretria.  Looking  upon  the 
war  as  a  foolhardy  undertaking,  Herodotus  bitterly  complains  that 
it  was  easier  for  Aristagoras  to  deceive  thirty  thousand  Athenians  than 
one  Spartan,  and  that  the  ships  despatched  to  the  war  "  proved  to  be 
the  beginning  of  evils  for  the  Hellenes  and  the  Barbarians."  ^^ 

The  burning  of  Sardis,  4q8.  The  crews  of  these  vessels  joined 
with  the  lonians  in  an  attack  on  Sardis.  They  burned  the  city;  but 
failing  to  take  the  citadel,  they  were  forced  to  retreat.  On  their  way 
to  the  coast  they  were  overtaken  and  defeated  by  the  Persians  at 
Ephesus.  Thereupon  the  Athenians  returned  home,  and  would  have 
nothing  more  to  do  with  the  war.  This  conduct  proves,  not  fickleness 
of  purpose,  but  the  defective  character  of  the  popular  assembly  as  an 
instrument  for  the  management  of   foreign  relations.     The  friends 

14  Hdt.    V.    35-51. 
15Hdt.  V.  97-9. 


166  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

of  Hippias  were  always  numerous  and  the  change  of  a  few  timid 
votes  from  the  republican  to  the  tyrannist  party  was  sufficient  to 
give  the  latter  the  control.  As  the  republicans  were  ready  for  war,  the 
t>'rannists  were  eager  for  peace. ^^ 

The  defeat  at  Lade  (497);  its  effect  on  Athens.  The  burning 
of  Sardis  encouraged  the  revolt,  which  rapidly  spread  to  all  western 
Asia  Minor,  Thrace,  and  Cyprus.  At  the  same  time  it  roused  Darius 
to  extraordinary  efforts  for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion.  The 
decisive  battle  was  fought  off  Lade,  near  Miletus,  between  the  Greek 
and  Phoenician  fleets,  three  hundred  and  fifty-three  against  six  hun- 
dred ships,  according  to  Herodotus.  Shirking  the  drill  necessary  to 
efficient  action,  the  Greeks  preferred  to  waste  their  time  in  the  shade. 
Discipline  and  united  action  were  therefore  impossible;  many  Greeks 
listened  to  secret  overtures  from  their  exiled  tyrant  now  with  the 
enemy;  and  the  result  was  inevitably  utter  ruin.  If  this  battle  was 
fought  in  497,  we  can  understand  the  feeling  which  the  news  of  defeat 
excited  at  Athens.  Reconciliation  with  Persia  seemed  a  necessity. 
The  tyrannist  party  was  so  strengthened  that  it  elected  to  the  archon- 
ship  for  496  Hipparchus,  a  kinsman  of  Hippias.  This  was  a  step 
toward  recalling  the  tyrant. ^^ 

Siege  of  Miletus,  497-4.  Meantime  the  Persians  had  laid  close 
blockade  to  Miletus.  After  a  long  siege  they  captured  and  sacked  the 
city.  After  killing  most  of  the  men  they  transplanted  the  rest  of 
the  population,  in  Asiatic  style,  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tigris.  In 
another  year  the  entire  rebellion  was  suppressed.  In  many  instances 
cities  were  plundered  and  destroyed,  and  the  remnants  of  the  popula- 
tion carried  into  captivity.^* 

Significance  of  the  fall  of  Miletus.  It  would  be  difficult  to  over- 
rate the  significance  of  these  events.  For  centuries  the  lonians  had 
been  the  standard-bearers  of  the  world's  civilization.  Miletus,  the 
home  of  commerce  and  industry  and  of  the  fine  arts,  of  poetry  and 
science,  the  most  brilliant  city  in  Hellas,  was  blotted  out  of  existence. 
Since  the  decay  of  the  Minoan  civilization  human  progress  had  not 
experienced  so  severe  a  blow.  Fortunately,  however,  other  minds  and 
hands  were  ready  to  take  up  the  thought  and  skill  of  Ionia  and  to 
carry  it  to  a  far  higher  reach  of  perfection. 

i6Hdt.  V.  99-103. 

i7Hdt.  V.   103-vi.   17.  Hipparchus  Archon,  496-5;  Dion.  Hal.  v.  77.  6;  vi.   1.  1. 

i8Hdt.  vi.  18-21. 


CONQUEST  OF  ASIATIC  GREECE  167 

Effect  of  the  event  on  Athens.  It  is  worth  while  for  us  to  notice 
how  sensitive  was  the  political  atmosphere  of  Athens  to  the  hap[)en- 
ings  across  the  sea.  "  When  Phrynichus  had  composed  a  drama 
called  the  Capture  of  Miletus  and  had  put  it  on  the  stage,  the  spectators 
fell  to  weeping,  and  tlie  Athenians  fined  the  poet  a  thousand  drachmas 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  reminded  them  of  their  own  misfor- 
tunes; and  they  ordered  that  in  future  no  one  should  present  this 
drama."  ^°  To  them  heretofore  the  thought  of  submission  to  Persia 
had  meant  no  more  than  tyranny  and  the  payment  of  tribute.  The 
poet  made  them  vividly  see  the  horrors  which  attended  the  Persian 
triumph  over  a  city  of  kindred  blood,  and  which  surely  impended 
over  themselves.  They  would  have  no  more  of  tyrannist  politics.  In 
this  frame  of  mind  they  elected  to  the  archonship  for  493-2  -°  an  un- 
compromising advocate  of  war  for  the  defense  of  the  republic,  a  man 
of  marvellous  energy   and   mental   resources  —  Themistocles. 

Themistocles  archon  493-2.  He  belonged  to  the  gens  of  the 
Lycomidae  highly  reverenced  for  its  priestly  functions,  though  hitherto 
without  political  importance.  His  father  Neocles  was  probably  a 
merchant,  and  Themistocles  was  himself  accounted  a  "  keen  man  of 
business."  An  obstacle  in  his  way  was  the  circumstance  that  he 
laid  out  for  himself  a  political  path  which  coincided  with  the  aims 
of  neither  the  tyrannists  nor  the  republicans,  the  two  great  parties 
of  the  time.  His  support  came  from  the  mercantile  class,  who 
were  in  a  better  position  than  others  to  appreciate  his  aims,  and  from 
the  masses,  in  whose  hearts  his  patriotism  awakened  a  responsive 
echo.-^ 

For  the  control  of  the  sea;  Peiraeus.  At  this  early  date  he 
seems  to  have  understood  the  weak  point  in  any  effort  of  Persia  to 
conquer  Greece.  The  country  was  too  barren  to. feed  an  invading 
army  large  enough  to  crush  the  liberty-loving  inhabitants.  It  would 
be  essential,  therefore,  to  the  Persian  king's  success  to  keep  control 
of  the  sea  in  order  to  supply  his  army  with  provisions.  Themistocles 
saw  the  practicability  of  building  a  Hellenic  fleet  large  enough  to 
gain  the  supremacy  of  the  sea.  Thus  Hellas  would  be  saved  and 
his  own  city  raised  to  a  towering  preeminence.  His  year  of  office  he 
devoted,    accordingly,    to    improving   the   three    natural    harbors    of 

19Hdt.  vi.  21;  cf.   Strabo  xiv.   1.   7. 

20  Date;  Dion.  Hal.  vi.  34.  1. 

21  Plut.  Them.  1,  5;  Nepos,  Tlicni.  I. 


168  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Peiraeus  as  a  home  for  the  great  Athenian  fleet  of  which  he  dreamed. 
He  was  in  fact  the  first  to  call  attention  to  the  advantages  of  Peiraeus 
over  the  open  roadstead  of  the  Phalerum  with  which  Athenian  mer- 
chants had  thus  far  satisfied  themselves.  His  far-reaching  vision  was 
all  the  more  remarkable  from  the  circumstance  that,  during  his 
official  year,  the  Persians  were  actually  attempting  an  invasion  of 
Greece  by  way  of  Thrace  and  Macedon.-- 

22  Improvement  of  Peiraeus;  Thuc.  i.  93;  cf.  14.  Attempted  invasion  of  Greece;  Hdt. 
vi.  43-5. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  219-238,  I,  ch.  xxiii;  Grote  IV,  chs.  xxxii-xxxv ;  Grundy,  Great  Persian 
War  (Scribner.  1901):  Beloch.  Griech.  Gesch.,  II,  1-17;  Busolt,  II,  450-557; 
Meyer,  Gesch.  d.  Alt.,  Ill,  1-317. 


MARATHON 
CHAPTER  XI 

THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE 

492-479      ^ 

The  underlying  cause  of  the  war  between  Persia  and  Greece. 

The  fundamental  cause  of  the  great  war  between  Greece  and  the 
Asiatic  empire  lay  in  the  Persian  policy  of  conquest.  The  chief 
interest  in  Oriental  empire-building  had  always  been  predatory  — 
the  acquisition  of  slaves  and  other  booty  attending  the  subjugation  of 
a  country  as  well  as  the  tributes  thereaffer  permanently  imposed. 
Each  king  desired,  too,  to  excel  his  predecessor  in  the  glory  of  tri- 
umphant war;  and  Darius  was  himself  not  only  an  organizer  but 
conqueror,  intent  upon  pushing  his  imperial  boundary  westward  as 
well  as  in  other  directions.^  The  subjugation  of  Asia  Minor  had 
been  followed  by  the  invasion  of  Europe  and  the  annexation  of  the 
Thracian  coast.  An  attempt  had  been  made  on  Naxos  and  the  near- 
lying  Aegean  islands.  Steadily  by  land  and  sea  the  empire  was 
approaching  the  Greek  peninsula.  Undoubtedly  Darius  placed  a 
high  value  on  the  Hellenes  as  mariners,  artisans,  and  artists,  and 
probably  overestimated  the  wealth  of  the  country.  These  circum- 
stances alone  would  suffice  to  explain  his  invasions  of  Greece.-     In 

1  E.  g.    for   Assyria;    Botsford,   Source-Book,   ch.    iii.    §1,    4.     Persia;    ch.    v.    §2;    Behistan 
Inscr.   (ed.  Tolman),  i.  6  ff. 

2  Thrace;  p.  162;  Naxos;   p.  164.     Greek  sculptors  and  architects  at  Susa;  Pliny,  N.  H, 

169 


170  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  Ionic  revolt,  moreover,  was  involved  an  additional  motive;  he 
could  never  hope  to  keep  his  Asiatic  Greeks  submissive  so  long  as 
their  European  kinsmen  were  free  to  interfere  with  encouragement 
and  aid  to  rebellion.  It  was  not  mere  anger  at  the  Athenians,  then, 
for  having  joined  in  the  burning  of  Sardis,  as  Herodotus  represents,^ 
but  a  well  founded  policy  which  prompted  Darius  to  punish  Athens 
and  Eretria  for  their  meddling  in  his  imperial  affairs.* 

The  expedition  of  Mardonius,  492.  In  the  year  immediately 
following  the  suppression  of  the  Ionian  revolt,  accordingly,  Darius 
sent  his  son-in-law  Mardonius  at  the  head  of  a  large  army  through 
Thrace  against  Greece.  It  was  supported  by  a  fleet,  which  de- 
scribed a  parallel  movement  along  the  coast.  The  avowed  purpose 
was  the  punishment  of  Athens  and  Eretria,  but  a  wider  object  is 
proved  by  the  conquest  of  Thasos  and  Macedon.^  While  encamped 
in  the  latter  country,  the  invading  army  suffered  great  loss  from  an 
attack  by  the  Thracians,  and  at  nearly  the  same  time  the  fleet  was 
shattered  in  an  attempt  to  round  Mount  Athos.  Mardonius,  accord- 
ingly, led  his  expedition  home  in  disgrace,  and  was  deposed  from  his 
command. " 

The  king  demands  submission ;  the  condition  of  Hellas.  This 
disaster  left  a  stain  upon  the  King's  glory,  which  had  by  all  means 
to  be  wiped  off.  He  began  forthwith  to  prepare  a  greater  armament. 
At  the  same  time  he  sent  heralds  among  the  Greek  states  to  demand 
earth  and  water.  Determined  upon  making  himself  master  of  all 
Hellas,  he  wished  first  to  separate  the  willingly  submissive  from  those 
against  whom  he  should  have  to  apply  force.  Hopeless  of  resistance, 
the  islanders  yielded;  and  many  of  the  mainland  acted  likewise. 
Among  the  more  independent  states  which  thus  "  medized "  were 
the  Thessalian  cities,  Thebes, —  doubtless  irritated  by  the  aggressions 

xxxiv.  68.     A  Greek  engineer  served  Darius;   Hdt.   iv.  87-9.    Ionian  fleet  in  Persian  serv- 
ice;   p.    161.     Persian  talk  of  Greek  wealth;    Aesch.  Pers.  236  f. 

3  Hdt.   V.    105;   vi.   94. 

4  Our  principal  source  is  still  Herodotus,  who  was  bom  in  the  war,  and  who  gathered 
most  of  his  information  from  eye-witnesses.  Aeschylus,  Persians,  with  surpassing  genius 
pictures  the  battle  of  Salamis  and  attendant  events,  in  which  he  had  taken  part.  Nepos, 
Miltiades ;  Thcmistoclcs ;  Diodorus  x.  27-xi.  38;  Justin  ii.  9-15  are  largely  from  Ephorus. 
For  the  Carthag'nian  war,  however,  Diodorus  depended  chiefly  on  the  native  Sicilian  his- 
torians, Antio'bus,  Philistus,  and  Timaeus.  Aristotle,  Const.  Ath.  22  is  valuable  though 
brief.  Plutarci.,  Tlieniistocles ;  Aristeides ;  Cinion,  although  more  interested  in  ethics  than 
in  historical  truth,  and  representing  extreme  partisan  prejudices,  has  the  merit  of  drawing 
much  of  his  material  from  sources  nearly  contemporary.  There  are  inscriptions,  too,  some 
of  which  are  cited  in  the  footnotes;  and  ancient  literature  abounds  in  references  to  the 
events  narrated  in  this  chapter. 

5  P.  168.  Persian  garrisons  placed  along  the  coast;  Hdt.  vii.  105-7.  Thasos  and  Mace- 
don;   vi.  44. 

6  Hdt.  vi.  44,  94 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE         171 

of  Athens, —  and  Argos  through  enmity  to  Lacedaemon/  With  the 
exception  of  Aegina  the  Peloponnesian  league,  directed  by  King  Cleo- 
menes,  stood  firmly  loyal.  It  had  been  joined,  some  years  earlier,  by 
Athens;  ^  and  from  the  archonship  of  Themistocles  we  discover  a 
close  understanding  between  his  city  and  Lacedaemon  as  to  the  main- 
tenance of  a  consistent  attitude  toward  Persia.  On  the  complaint  of 
Athens,  now  at  war  with  Aegina,  Cleomenes  attempted  in  vain  to  pun- 
ish the  leading  medizers  of  that  island.^  We  recognize  in  this  pro- 
ceeding an  acknowledgment  of  Lacedaemon  as  the  leading  state  of 
Hellas,  vested  with  the  right  and  duty  of  enforcing  loyalty. 

Pessimism  in  Hellas;  desperate  measures  of  Athens  and 
Sparta,  In  most  respects  conditions  inspired  no  hope  in  a  successful 
resistance  to  the  overwhelming  Persian  power.  The  loyal  states 
formed  but  a  small  fraction  of  Hellas,  and  even  in  them  were  strong 
minorities  who  were  willing  to  yield,  to  escape  what  seemed  inevitable 
destruction.  Extraordinary  measures  were  taken  to  nullify  their  influ- 
ence. The  story  was  afterward  told  that  at  Athens  the  king's  heralds 
were  threwn  into  the  Barathron,  at  Sparta  into  a  well, —  with  the  order 
to  take  thence  earth  and  water  to  their  lord.  By  violating  the  sacred 
persons  of  ambassadors  the  authorities  aimed  to  cut  off  every  hope  of 
reconciliation  with  Darius,  and  thus  to  commit  their  states  irrevoca- 
bly to  a  life  and  death  struggle  for  freedom.^" 

Athenian  preparation;  Miltiades.  The  Athenians  exerted 
themselves  to  the  utmost  to  prepare  for  the  impending  invasion. 
Their  most  effective  measure  at  this  crisis  was  the  election  of  Miltiades 
to  the  board  of  generals.  His  uncle  of  the  same  name  had  ruled  the 
Athenian  colony  of  Chersonese  under  the  Peisistratidae.  Ultimately 
the  government  of  the  colony  devolved  upon  the  nephew  Miltiades, 
who  made  himself  tyrant,"  and  strengthened  his  dynasty  by  a  mar- 
riage with  the  daughter  of  a  neighboring  Thracian  chief.  During  the 
Scythian  expedition  he  had  been  forced  to  serve  under  Darius,  but 
had  afterward  joined  the  lonians  in  revolt,  thus  incurring  the  impla- 
cable enmity  of  Persia.     A^er  the  collapse  of  the  revolt,  he  fled  for 

7  Hdt.  vi.  48-50;  vii.  6,  148  ff.  Tldough  the  Thessalian  people  were  loyal,  their  rulers 
began  earlv  to  medize.  / 

8  Probably  about  500;  Thuc.  i.  10/  1;  vi.  82.  3. 

9  Hdt.   vi.  49  f.  '  .  -r       .   • 

10  Hdt.  vii.  1.33;  Plut.  Them.  6;  Paus.  iii.  12.  7.  The  story  is  true  in  essence  if  not  in 
detail.  Barathron,  the  gorge  west  'of  Nymphs'  hill,  into  which  executed  criminals  were 
thrown.  .  ,n     di   * 

11  A  measure  to  guard  against  assassination;  Hdt.  vi.  103.  Thracian  marriage;  39;  i'lut. 
Cim.  4. 


172  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

his  life  to  Athens.  Scarcely  arrived  in  his  native  land,  in  the  archon- 
ship  of  Themistocles,  he  was  brought  to  trial  on  the  capital  charge  of 
having  usurped  the  tyranny  in  Chersonese.  His  prosecutor  must 
have  been  one  of  the  republican  statesmen  in  sympathy  with  Themis- 
tocles. Among  the  arguments  which  led  to  his  acquittal  were  most 
probably  his  recent  acquisition  of  Lemnos  for  Athens,  his  known 
enmity  to  Persia,  and  the  hope  of  his  future  usefulness  as  a  man 
well  acquainted  with  the  military  affairs  of  the  enemy. ^- 

Athenian  commanders  and  army,  490.  It  speaks  well  for  the 
sobriety  of  the  Athenians  that  they  suppressed  party  feelings  to  ac- 
quit this  anti-republican,  elect  him  to  the  generalship,  and  provide 
him  with  congenial  colleagues  on  the  board  and  in  the  office  of  pole- 
march.  Under  his  guidance  the  Athenians  abandoned  the  naval 
program  of  Themistocles,  to  devote  their  whole  attention  to  the  heavy 
infantry.  The  army  of  the  reborn  republic,  in  the  crisis  attending 
the  reforms  of  Cleisthenes,  had  gallantly  overcome  a  coalition  of 
powerful  neighbors.  It  was  efficiently  organized  and  equipped  and 
though  it  lacked  the  professional  training  of  Spartans,  no  foixe  in 
the  world  of  that  time  could  compare  with  it  in  military  spirit.^^ 

The  Persian  invasion;  capture  of  Eretria.  In  the  summer  of 
490  an  Asiatic  fleet,  conveying  a  land  force  of  infantry  and  cavalry, 
moved  westward  across  the  Aegean  sea.  It  was  commanded  by  Datis, 
a  Mede,  and  Artaphernes,  a  nephew  of  Darius.  Most  of  the  islanders 
along  their  route  submitted.  The  immediate  object  was  to  subdue 
Eretria  and  Athens,  and  bring  the  inhabitants  as  slaves  into  the 
presence  of  the  Great  King.  After  a  siege  of  six  days,  Eretria  was 
betrayed  by  two  of  her  people.  The  city  was  sacked  and  the  popula- 
tion taken  captive.  ^* 

The  landing  at  Marathon;  the  message  to  Sparta.  From  Ere- 
tria the  Persians,  under  the  guidance  of  the  aged  Hippias,  crossed  over 
to  Marathon,  on  the  coast  northeast  of  Athens.  Hearing  of  this 
movement,  the  Athenians  despatched  Pheidippides,  a  professional 
long-distance  runner,  to  Sparta  to  ask  aid.  Reaching  Sparta  the 
day  after  setting  out,  he  said  to  the  magistrates:  "  Lacedaemonians, 
the  Athenians  ask  you  to  come  to  their  aid,  and  not  allow  so  ancient 
a  Hellenic  city  to  be  enslaved  by  the  Barbarians,  for  already  Eretria 

12  Founding  of  Chersonese;  p.  116  above.  The  younger  Miltiades;  Hdt.  vi.  39,  103  f., 
136,   140;   Plut.   Cini.  4;  Nepos,  Milt.  2;   Died,  x,   19  b. 

13  Callimachus  was  polemarch  (IG.  I  p.  153),  Aristeides  a  general;  Plut.  Arist. 
5.  The  policy  of  Miltiades  prevails;  Stesimbrotus,  in  Plut.  Them.  4.  Earlier  Athenian 
victories  over  Thebes  and  Chalcis:  Hdt.  v.  74-8. 

14  Hdt.  vi.  94-101. 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE  173 

has  fallen  into  slavery,  and  Hellas  has  been  weakened  l)y  the  loss  of 
no  mean  city."  The  Lacedaemonians,  says  Herodotus,  were  eager 
to  give  aid,  but  a  religious  law  forbade  their  departure  before  the 
full  moon.^^ 

The  battle  of  Marathon,  4Q0.  Meanwhile  the  Athenian  anny 
had  marched  to  Marathon  and  had  encamped  in  a  narrow  valley  fac- 
ing the  Persians,  who  were  in  the  plain  adjoining  the  shore.  There 
they  were  strengthened  by  a  small  force  from  Plataea,  their  ally. 
The  Athenian  commander  was  Callimachus,  the  polemarch,  whose 
council  of  war  comprised  the  group  of  ten  generals,  including  Milti- 
ades.  It  was  decided  to  give  the  chief  command  to  the  latter  because 
of  his  great  experience  and  his  knowledge  of  the  Persians.  The 
situation  was  such  that  should  the  Persians  take  the  road  to  Athens, 
the  Athenians  could  attack  them  in  the  flank.  After  several  days  of 
waiting  the  invaders  moved  against  their  enemy's  position.  They 
were  furnished  with  bows  and  short  swords  and  wore  but  slight  de- 
fensive armor,  whereas  the  Athenians  were  heavy-armed,  and  de- 
pended upon  their  long  spears  for  attack.  Understanding  well  the 
strength  and  weakness  of  the  opposing  force,  Miltiades  held  his  men 
back  till  the  arrows  of  the  enemy  began  to  reach  them,  whereupon  he 
ordered  them  to  charge  at  a  run.  Thus  they  avoided  long  exposure 
to  the  arrows,  and  came  most  speedily  to  close  quarters.  Wholly  un- 
prepared for  hand-to-hand  fighting,  the  Persians  retreated  with 
great  loss  to  their  ships.  After  a  vain  attempt  to  surprise  Athens  by 
an  attack  from  Phalerum,  the  invading  armament  sailed  back  to 
Asia.  A  force  of  Lacedaemonians,  arriving  too  late  for  the  fray, 
could  only  express  their  appreciation  of  the  brave  work  of  their 
allies.^" 

Effects  of  the  victory.  There  were  perhaps  ten  thousand  Athen- 
ians engaged  in  this  battle,  and  in  numbers  the  Persians  were  cer- 
tainly superior.  The  moral  effect  of  the  victory  was  tremendous. 
"  Up  to  this  time  the  very  name  of  the  Medes  was  to  the  Hellenes 
a  terror  to  hear;  "  ^"  but  it  was  now  demonstrated  that  the  Greek 
warrior  was  superior  to  the  Persian.  The  westward  advance  of  the 
Asiatic  empire  was  halted,   and  the   Greeks  were  inspired  with  a 

ISHdt.  vi.  102-7;  Paus.   i.  28.  4  (from  Hdt.);  Nepos,  Milt.  4. 

l6Hdt.  vi.  111-20;  Nepos,  Milt.  5  f . ;  Plut.  Arist.  5;  Paus.  i.  IS;  Justin  ii.  9;  Athenian 
decree   commanding  the   march;    Demosth.    Parap.    303;    cf.    Arist.    Rliet.   iii.    10,    1411    a. 

17  Hdt.  vi.  112,  an  exaggeration,  but  the  fear  was  widespread;  cf.  Theognis  763  f.,  775  rf 
and  the  Delphic  pessimism;  p.   181. 


174  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

fair  hope  of  maintaining  their  freedom.  To  the  Athenians,  who 
almost  singlehanded  had  beaten  a  power  thought  to  be  irresistible,  this 
victory  ser\'ed  as  an  incentive  to  heroism,  and  enwrapped  the  Mara- 
thonian  warriors  in  an  unfading  glory. 

The  end  of  Miltiades.  During  the  next  few  years  the  history  of 
Athens  centres  in  the  conflict  of  personalities  and  of  parties.  For 
the  moment  the  victory  made  her  people  forget  all  other  leading 
statesmen  in  their  admiration  for  the  general  who  had  won  it.  Tak- 
ing advantage  of  their  confidence,  Miltiades  persuaded  them  to  en- 
trust to  him  a  fleet  of  seventy  ships,  saying  he  would  lead  his  coun- 
trymen to  a  place  where  they  could  enrich  themselves,  but  not  letting 
them  know  definitely  his  purpose.  With  this  armament  he  sailed 
against  the  Parians,  on  whom  he  levied  a  fine  of  a  hundred  talents 
for  having  joined  the  enemy  in  attacking  Athens.  On  their  refusal 
to  pay  he  besieged  the  island,  but  failed  to  capture  it,  and  returned 
home  wounded,  to  disappoint  the  hopes  of  all.  Thereupon  he  was 
tried  for  his  life  before  the  popular  assembly  on  the  charge  of  "  having 
deceived  the  Athenians."  He  was  condemned;  but  because  of  his 
former  services  the  punishment  was  mitigated  to  a  fine  of  fifty  talents. 
The  condemned  man  died  of  his  wound,  and  the  fine  was  paid  by  his 
son  Cimon.^* 

Miltiades  had  embarked  on  a  policy  of  aggrandizing  his  state  by 
the  conquest  of  the  "  medizing  "  islanders.  Had  the  undertaking 
succeeded,  the  Athenians  would  undoubtedly  have  approved  the  policy, 
and  the  conqueror  might  have  made  himself  tyrant.  His  failure  gave 
his  enemies  their  opportunity  to  strike  him  down.  His  prosecutor 
was  Xanthippus,  a  republican  statesman,  who  had  allied  himself 
with  the  Alcmeonidae  by  his  marriage  with  Agariste,  niece  of  Cleis- 
thenes. 

The  struggle  of  republicans  and  tyrannists.  The  republican 
leaders  must  have  considered  the  overthrow  of  Miltiades  a  great  vic- 
tory for  the  constitution.  Gradually,  however,  the  tyrannists,  who  had 
not  long  remained  in  the  background,  and  who  had  contented  them- 
selves during  the  invasion  with  secret  encouragement  to  the  enemy, 
began  to  make  themselves  again  felt  in  politics  and  perhaps  about 
the  same  time  the  Athenians  learned  of  preparations  by  the  enemy 
for  another  attack.     In  the  spring  of  487,  accordingly,  the  republi- 

i8Hdt.   vi.   132-6;   Ephorus,  FHG.   I.   p.   263.   107;   Plut.   Cim.   4   fwronely  suDooses  that 
Miltiades  was  imprisoned). 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE         175 

cans  turned  in  great  fury  upon  the  tyrannists,  and  ostracised  their 
leader,  Hipparchus,  a  retired  archon  and  kinsman  of  Hippias.  This 
was  the  first  application  of  ostracism. ^^ 

A  great  constitutional  change.  It  is  clear,  too,  that  many  prom- 
inent republicans  were  now  bent  on  making  the  constitution  more 
democratic.  This  wing  of  the  party  was  represented  l)y  Aristeides, 
who  had  been  archon  the  year  after  the  battle  of  Marathon.  Shortly 
after  the  ostracism  of  Hipparchus  these  progressives  brought  about 
the  adoption  of  a  law  according  to  which  the  archons,  instead  of 
being  elected,  should  be  taken  by  lot  from  nominees  furnished  by 
the  demes.-°  The  measure  had  a  democratic  appearance  in  that  it 
gave  all  the  qualified  an  equal  chance  for  the  office,  whereas  in  fact 
it  degraded  the  archonship  by  filling  it  with  men  of  mediocre  abil- 
ity. Henceforth  no  eminent  man  ever  held  the  office.  The  nine 
archons  ceased  forthwith  to  be  the  chief  magistrates  and  the  pole- 
march  lost  his  command  of  the  army.  The  headship  of  the  state 
passed  to  the  ten  generals.  Statesmen  who  promoted  this  measure 
had  held  the  archonship  once,  and  were  forbidden  by  law  to  repeat 
it;  but  the  generalship  they  could  hold  as  often  as  the  people  were 
willing  to  elect  them  to  it;  and  perhaps  this  was  the  leading  motive 
to  the  innovation. 

Conservatives  and  democrats;  end  of  the  tyrannists.  On  this 
issue  the  republicans  split  into  two  parties,  those  who  favored  the 
change  were  thereafter  to  be  known  as  democrats;  their  opponents 
were  conservatives.  Naturally  the  Alcmeonidae  wished  to  preserve 
the  Cleisthenean  legislation  unchanged,  and  therefore  took  the  lead 
of  the  conservatives.  Megacles,  nephew  of  Cleisthenes,  was  ostra- 
cised in  the  spring  of  486,  probably  because  of  his  opposition  to  the 
reform.  His  being  classed  with  the  friends  of  the  tyrants  points  to 
a  political  deal  with  that  part}'.  But  the  tyrannists  were  thoroughly 
demoralized  by  the  ostracism  of  another  leader,  not  known  by  name, 
in  the  following  year.  The  faction,  accordingly,  disappeared  from 
history,  its  members  joining  the  other  two  parties  according  to  their 
several  inclinations.  Undoubtedly  the  conservatism  of  Xanthippus 
led  to  his  ostracism  in  484.  By  means  of  the  slender  thread  fur- 
nished us  by  Aristotle  we  have  followed  darkly  the  course  of  a  mighty 
political  battle  for  the  constitution  and  for  progress.     When  the  light 

19  Xanthippus;    Hdt.    vi.    131,    136;    Plut.    Per.    3.    Hipparchus   ostracised;    Arist.    Const. 
Ath.  3. 

20  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  22.  5. 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE  177 

of  history  breaks  upon  the  field,  we  see  athwart  the  ruin  of  tyrannists 
and  conservatives,  the  two  great  victors  in  the  struggle:  Aristeides 
and  Themistocles.  '^ 

The  naval  and  financial  questions;  Themistocles  against 
Aristeides.  Again  Athenian  politics  turned  on  the  question  of  war 
with  Persia;  for  it  was  now  known  that  preparations  were  far  ad- 
vanced for  a  new  and  greater  expedition.  Themistocles  again  urged 
the  creation  of  a  navy,  and  advised  that  the  surplus  in  the  treasury 
from  silver  mines  in  Laurium  be  used  for  the  purpose.  Aristeides 
on  the  other  hand  was  content  with  the  army,  which  had  won  so 
great  a  victory.  Down  to  this  time  the  Athenians  seemingly  never  en- 
tertained a  thought  of  devoting  any  extraordinary  gain  to  the  benefit 
of  the  state.  Whenever  Aristeides  or  any  of  his  countrymen  ascended 
the  Acropolis,  he  could  see  on  the  left  as  he  entered  the  gateway  a 
bronze  chariot  and  four  which  some  years  earlier  his  people  had 
dedicated  from  the  spoils  of  a  victory  gained  over  neighbors,  and 
more  recently  from  the  booty  of  Marathon  they  had  erected  a  neat 
little  "  Treasury  of  the  Athenians  "  at  Delphi,  though  it  would  have 
been  far  better  to  employ  these  proceeds  to  a  naval  fund.  The  in- 
habitants of  the  island  of  Siphnos  had  long  been  accustomed  to  divide 
among  themselves  the  revenues  from  their  mines  and  probably  this 
was  the  general  practice  in  early  Greece.  It  would  accord  perfectly 
with  the  later  policy  of  Aristeides  to  assume  that  he  was  among  those 
who  favored  an  equal  division  of  the  revenue  from  the  Attic  mines 
among  the  citizens.  When  the  conflict  between  the  two  statesmen 
became  bitter,  Aristeides  was  ostracised,  and  went  to  live  in  Aegina, 
then  at  war  with  Athens.'- 

The  naval  decree  of  Themistocles,  482.  About  the  same  time 
the  naval  decree  of  Themistocles,  providing  for  the  building  of  a 
hundred  triremes,  was  adopted  by  the  assembly.  Forty-seven  more 
were  addefi  before  the  great  naval  conflict  came.  The  motive  of 
Themistocles  was  purely  patriotic  —  to  defend  the  freedom  of  Hellas 
and  to  make  his  own  state  a  great  power.  The  democratic  effect 
could  hardly  have  been  foreseen.  In  fact,  so  far  as  one  class  more 
than  another  benefited  by  the  measure,  it  was  the  merchants  through 
whose  cooperation  Themistocles  carried  his  decree.     When  we  con- 

21  Arist.   Const.  Ath.  22.   5  f. ;   Megacles;   Find.   Pyih.  vii. 

22  Bronze  chariot  and  four;  Hdt.  v.  77.  Athenian  treasury  at  Delphi;  Dinsmoor,  W.  B., 
BCH.  XXXVII.  5-83.  Mines  of  Siphnos;  H.  Civ.  no.  57  (Hdt.).  The  naval  proposition; 
Hdt.  vii.  144;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  7;  Plut.  Arist.  7  f . ;   Them.  4- 


i 


178  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

sider  the  obstacles  he  had  to  overcome  in  securing  its  adoption,  as 
well  as  the  far-reaching  results,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  it  was 
the  most  splendid  individual  achievement  of  statesmanship  up  to 
that  time  known  to  the  world. 

Xerxes  prepares  a  gigantic  invasion.  The  battle  of  Marathon 
shook  the  military  prestige  of  the  Great  King  and  encouraged  re- 
bellion within  the  empire.  The  conquest  of  Greece  became,  accord- 
ingly, even  more  than  ever  a  question  of  practical  necessity  as  well 
as  of  honor.  Preparations  for  a  new  invasion,  however,  were  sus- 
pended by  the  revolt  of  Egypt,  and  the  death  of  Darius  (486).  After 
the  reconquest  of  that  country,  Xerxes,  son  and  successor  of  the 
deceased  king,  devoted  himself  to  gathering  the  whole  available 
strength  of  the  empire  with  a  view  to  overwhelming  Greece  by  the 
force  of  numbers.  Mardonius  was  pardoned  for  his  earlier  failure. 
As  his  route  was  to  be  followed,  engineers  and  workmen  were  soon 
engaged  in  bridging  the  Hellespont  with  boats,  and  in  cutting  a 
canal  through  the  isthmus  of  Mount  Athos;  for  the  ships  were  on 
this  occasion  to  avoid  the  fatal  promontory.  As  the  army  could 
subsist  only  in  small  part  on  the  invaded  country,  great  depots  of 
provisions  were  established  along  the  projected  route.  The  care  and 
pains  expended  on  the  provisioning  and  equipment  of  the  expedition 
were  extraordinary.  In  the  autumn  of  481  the  nations  of  the  empire 
were  pouring  their  motley  forces  into  Asia  Minor,  and  ships  were 
preparing  in  all  the  Mediterranean  harbors  subject  to  Persia.  With 
his  great  host  Xerxes  wintered  at  Sardis  in  expectation  of  setting  out 
in  earliest  spring  (winter  of  481-0).^^ 

Lack  of  preparation  throughout  Hellas.  Thus  far,  outside  of 
Athens,  the  Greeks  had  begun  no  preparation  to  resist  the  invader; 
and  no  further  progress  had  been  made  toward  unity.  The  heralds 
of  Xerxes,  as  they  passed  to  and  fro  throughout  Hellas  during  the 
winter  preceding  the  invasion,  found  many  states  ready  to  purchase 
safety  by  the  gift  of  earth  and  water.  The  patriot  cause  could  place 
no  reliance  on  Thessaly,  Thebes,  or  Argos,  or  on  the  less  progressive 
states  of  the  centre  and  west  of  the  peninsula,  or  on  the  numerous 
widely  scattered  islands.  Gelon,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  might  have 
given  powerful  aid,  but  had  to  face  a  Carthaginian  attack.-*  The 
brunt  was  to  be  borne  by  the  Peloponnesian  league,  Athens,  and  a  few 

2S  Hdt.   vii.    1-36;   cf.    Aesch.    Pcrs.    1    ff. 

24.Hpralds  of  Xerxes;   Hdt.   vii.   32,   131    ff.     Although   the  Thessalian  people  were  loyal, 
their  oligarchic  rulers  were  plotting  with  the  enemy.    Gelon;   153  S. 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE         179 

small  communities  on  the  peninsula  and  the  neighboring  islands;  and 
even  here  the  prevailing  sentiment  was  nearly   akin  to  despair. 

The  Hellenic  congress  at  Corinth,  autumn  of  481.  Under 
these  circumstances  deputies  from  the  loyal  states  met  at  Corinth  to 
concert  measures  for  defence.  The  call  had  been  issued  by  I^acedae- 
mon  but  at  the  suggestion  of  Athens,  undoubtedly  on  the  motion  of 
Themistocles.  It  was  on  his  initiative,  too,  that  this  congress,  when 
assembled,  resolved  that  all  enmities  among  the  states  there  repre- 
sented should  be  reconciled.  In  pursuance  of  this  resolution  Athens 
clasped  hands  with  her  inveterate  enemy  Aegina.  Another  act  pro- 
vided for  despatching  envoys  to  the  unrepresented  Hellenic  states  to 
invite  their  adhesion  to  the  cause,  and  for  sending  spies  to  the  camp 
of  Xerxes.  The  embassies  accomplished  nothing  worthy  of  mention; 
but  the  spies,  captured  by  the  Persians,  were,  under  order  of  the 
king,  shown  everything  in  the  camp  and  dismissed  in  the  expecta- 
tion that  their  report  of  his  immense  army  would  induce  the  Greeks 
to  yield  without  resistance.  It  was  resolved  further  by  the  Hellenic 
congress  to  wage  war  in  common  against  Persia,  and  in  the  event  of 
victory  to  destroy  those  Hellenic  states  which  should  willingly  medize, 
divide  their  property  as  spoil,  and  dedicate  a  tenth  to  the  Delphic 
Apollo.  The  congress  conferred  the  chief  command  by  sea  as  well 
as  by  land  on  Sparta,  to  whose  leadership  most  of  the  states  had 
long  been  accustomed.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  proceedings 
of  this  congress  were  directed  by  the  mighty  spirit  of  Themistocles, 
and  that  his  determination  to  fight  out  the  issue  on  the  sea  was  ac- 
cepted by  all  concerned. ^^ 

Xerxes  crosses  the  Hellespont;  his  army  and  fleet.  In  the 
spring  of  480  Xerxes  led  his  army  across  the  Hellespont,  and  began 
his  march  through  Thrace,  his  numbers  continually  increased  by  local 
reinforcements,  while  a  great  fleet  accompanied  him  along  the  coast. 
The  numbers  given  by  Herodotus,  amounting  to  more  than  five  mil- 
lions, including  non-combatants,  and  on  the  sea  twelve  hundred  and 
seven  warships,  is  an  enormous  exaggeration,  though  modern  scholars 
have  not  thus  far  agreed  as  to  actualities.  A  moderate  estimate 
would  be  a  hundred  thousand  fighting  men  in  the  land  force  and 
about  six  hundred  ships  of  war.^*^ 

25  Hdt.  vii.   132,  145-71;  viii.  2;  Thuc.  i.   18.  2;  Plut.   Them.  6.    Members  of  the  league; 
Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  19. 

26  Hdt.   vii.   60  ff.,  87.   89,   184  ff . ;   viii.   66.    Herodotus  adds  3000  transports.     1000  war- 
ships; Aesch.  Pers.  341-3. 


180  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  battle  of  Thermopylae,  480.  Xerxes  entered  Thessaly  un- 
opposed, whereupon  the  states  of  this  district  under  the  lead  of 
medizing  oligarchs,  passed  over  to  his  side.  In  accordance  with  the 
Themistoclean  plan  of  campaign,  the  Greek  fleet  took  up  its  station  at 
Artemisium,  off  northern  Euboea,  to  meet  the  Persian  fleet,-'  while  a 
force  of  about  six  thousand  Greeks  under  Leonidas,  King  of  Sparta, 
occupied  the  pass  of  Thermopylae  to  check  the  progress  of  the  land 
army.  In  that  narrow  road  between  the  Malian  gulf  and  the  steep 
mountain  side  where  numbers  did  not  count,  the  strong  armor  and 
long  spears  of  the  Greeks  might  have  held  the  Persian  host  indefinitely 
at  bay;  but  after  several  days  of  unsuccessful  assaulting  in  front,  a 
traitor  led  a  detachment  along  an  obscure  by-way  over  the  mountain 
to  the  rear  of  the  Hellenic  force. ^® 

The  encounter  at  Artemisium,  480.  When  the  Greek  position 
thus  became  untenable,  Leonidas  prudently  dismissed  all  his  allies, 
retaining  only  the  three  hundred  Spartans  who  were  with  him;  for  a 
law  of  their  country  forbade  the  Spartans  to  flee  from  an  enemy. 
Their  battle  to  death  was  the  noblest  even  in  the  history  of  their 
city.  Over  the  heroes'  graves  the  Amphictyonic  council  inscribed 
this  epitaph : 

Stranger,  report  this  word,  we  pray,  to  the   Spartans,  that  lying 
Here  in  this  spot  we  remain,  faithfully  keeping  their  laws.^^ 

To  the  rest  of  the  Greeks  this  heroic  example  was  the  most  pow- 
erful of  all  commands  —  to  keep  their  freedom  or  die  in  the  at- 
tempt. Meanwhile  the  Hellenes  at  Artemisium  were  encouraged  by 
successful  engagements  with  the  enemy,  and  by  the  damaging  of  the 
Persian  fleet  in  a  storm.  When,  however,  they  learned  that  Xerxes 
had  forced  the  pass  at  Thermopylae,  they  felt  compelled  to  with- 
draw, though  they  had  fought  no  decisive  battle.  The  total  result 
of  these  conflicts  by  sea  and  land  was  victory  to  the  Persians,  and  a 
strengthening  of  the  Greek  hope  that  under  more  favorable  conditions 
the  struggle  might  yet  be  successful. ^° 

The  Delphic  oracle.     Xerxes  was  now  advancing  through  Boeotia 

27  Attempt  to  hold  the  pass  at  Tempe,  not  mentioned  in  the  text;  Hdt.  vii.  172^.  The 
fleet  at  Artemisium;    175  ff.   271   triremes,   including   147   from    Athens;   viii.    1    f. 

28  Hdt.  vii.  198-219.  4000  Peloponnesians  (vii.  228)  and  2000  from  central  Greece  (vii. 
203). 

29  Hdt.  vii.  228.  The  last  struggle;  220-33.  Details  of  the  battle  not  found  in  Herodotus, 
as  in  Diod.  xi.  4-11;  Justin  ii.  11;  cf.  Plut.  Mai.  Hdt.  30-3,  may  have  been  drawn  in  part 
from   monuments,   but  are  mainly  fictitious. 

30  Hdt.  viii.  1-39;  Find.  Frag.  77;  Plut.   Them.  7-9;  Aristoph.  Lysistr.   1250  ff. 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE         181 

toward  Athens  and  the  states  of  central  Greece  were  flocking  to  his 
standard.  As  the  Hellenic  fleet  was  retiring  to  Salamis,  Thcmistocles 
returned  to  his  city,  to  find  it  full  of  gloom.  Earlier  in  the  invasion, 
when  rumors  of  the  irresistible  oncoming  of  the  enemy  troubled  their 
decision,  the  Athenians  sent  to  in(|uire  of  the  Delphic  Apollo  what 
hope  they  might  cherish  or  what  course  pursue,  and  the  messengers 
were  answered  by  dire  prophecies  of  ruin  and  slaughter,  ending  in 
the  command:  "Forth  with  you,  forth  from  the  shrine,  and  steep 
your  soul  in  sorrow."  ''^  Naturally  the  prudent  men  who  controlled 
the  oracle  could  see  no  result  of  the  war  save  the  utter  conquest  of 
Greece.  But  the  messengers  returned  as  suppliants  to  the  temple  de- 
claring they  would  remain  there  to  death,  unless  a  more  favorable 
response  were  given.  Then  in  the  story  of  Herodotus,  the  god  merci- 
fully offered  a  ray  of  hope :  — 

Pallas  has  not  been  able  to  soften  the  lord  of  Olympus, 

Though  she  has  often  prayed  him,  and  urged  him  with  excellent  counsel. 

Yet  once  more  I  address  thee  in  words  than  adamant  firmer; 

When  the  foe  shall  have  taken  whatever  the  limit  of  Cecrops 

Holds  within  it,  and  all  that  divine  Cithaeron  shelters, 

Then  far-seeing  Zeus  grants  this  to  the  prayers  of  Athena, — 

Safe  shall  the  wooden  wall  continue  for  thee  and  thy  children. 

Wait  not  the  tramp  of  the  horse,  nor  the  footman  mightily  moving 

Over  the  land,  but  turn  your  back  to  the  foe,  and  retire  ye. 

Yet  shall  a  day  arrive  when  ye  shall  meet  him  in  battle. 

Holy  Salamis,  thou  shalt  destroy  the  offspring  of  women, 

When  men  scatter  the  seed,  or  when  they  gather  the  harvest. ^•^ 

The  Athenians  abandon  their  country.  When  this  oracle  was 
brought  to  Athens,  some  were  of  the  opinion  that  the  "  wooden  wall '' 
had  reference  to  the  palisade  around  the  Acropolis,  and  accordingly 
took  refuge  there.  Themistocles,  however,  declared  that  it  meant 
the  fleet,  and  so  persuaded  the  Athenians  to  abandon  their  homes, 
and  trust  everything  to  their  ships.  The  removal  of  the  population 
and  personal  property  was  supervised  by  the  Council  of  the  Areopa- 
gus, now  filled  with  patriots  and  directed  by  Themistocles  and  his 
associates.  No  one  has  tried  to  tell  of  the  pain  and  heart-burnings, 
of  the  sufferings  of  the  sick  and  the  aged,  of  the  energy  and  the  un- 
selfish devotion  of  the  strong  attending  this  evacuation,  or  has  tried 
to  estimate  the  tremendous  moral  effect  on  the  community.  Some  idea 
of  the  event  we  might  form  by  imagining  the  removal  of  the  popula- 

31  Hdt.   vii.    140. 

32  Hdt.   vii.   141. 


182  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

tion  of  an  entire  coast  state,  with  our  greater  resources,  in  the  face  of 
invading  Asiatics.  Some  of  the  fugitives  remained  in  Salamis  and 
Aegina,  but  the  greater  number  were  carried  over  to  Troezen.  The 
people  of  that  city  voted  them  an  allowance  of  two  obols  each  for 
their  daily  support,  an  additional  sum  for  the  education  of  their 
children,  and  for  the  latter  "  the  privilege  of  picking  fruit  from  any 
man's  tree."  ^^ 

The  Hellenic  fleet  in  the  Bay  of  Salamis.  The  Hellenic  fleet 
halted  in  the  Bay  of  Salamis  to  cover  the  Athenian  retreat,  with  the 
intention,  too,  of  making  there  a  further  stand  against  the  enemy. 
The  place  was  well  chosen,  for  the  enemy  would  be  compelled  to  fight 
in  the  strait,  where  superior  numbers  would  not  count.  Further 
retreat  would  in  fact  be  almost  equivalent  to  abandoning  the  cause; 
for  it  would  leave  the  enemy  free  to  land  troops  on  the  coast  of 
Peloponnese  in  the  rear  of  the  Isthmian  line  of  defence  then  being 
prepared.  Reinforcements  more  than  made  good  the  loss;  the  Hellenes 
had  above  three  hundred  triremes  besides  smaller  vessels.  The 
Athenian  contingent  M^as  far  the  largest.  Not  only  was  the  fleet  at 
the  command  of  Persia,  made  up  of  Phoenician,  Egyptian,  Ionian, 
and  lesser  contingents,  superior  in  numbers  according  to  all  ancient 
accounts;  but  the  ships  were  better  built  and  the  crews  more  experi- 
enced. Ancient  writers  are  agreed  that  the  only  real  advantage  on 
the  Hellenic  side  was  in  spirit  and  resolution.  Recently,  however, 
it  has  been  suggested  with  some  degree  of  reason,  that  in  the  actual 
battle  the  Greeks  may  have  outnumbered  their  enemy.^* 

The  eve  of  the  battle.  Meanwhile  Xerxes  had  reached  Athens, 
having  laid  waste  the  country  along  his  route.  From  Salamis  the 
Greeks  could  see  the  city  in  flames,  and  their  scouts  espied  the  Persian 
fleet  at  anchor  in  the  bay  of  Phaleron.  These  circumstances  tended 
for  the  moment  to  lessen  the  courage  of  the  Greeks  and  to  suggest 
to  the  admirals  the  prudence  of  retiring  to  the  Isthmus  where  they 
could  cooperate  with  the  land  forces.  Themistocles,  however,  used 
all  the  resources  of  his  reason  and  eloquence  to  persuade  Eurybiades  to 
remain;  he  even  threatened  in  case  of  retreat  to  withdraw  his  ships 
and  use  them  in  conveying  the  Athenians  to  a  new  home  in  Italy. 
While  thus  pleading  with  the  admirals  he  took  measures  to  bring  on 

33  Hdt.  vii.   142  f . ;  viii.  40  f . ;   Arist.   Const.  Ath.  23;   Polit.  v.   4.   8,   1304  a;   Plut.    Them. 
9  f.  (including  the  Troezenian  decree);  Citn.  5;  Philochorus,  FHG.  I.  p.  397.  84. 

34  Hdt.    viii.    40   ff.     310   triremes;    Aeschylus,    Persians,   338;    378;    Hdt.    viii.    48;    of.    82.. 
nearly  400;  Thuc.  i.   74  (Athens,  two-thirds). 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE         183 

a  Persian  attack  as  soon  as  possible.  Secretly  despatching?  a  trusty 
slave  to  Xerxes,  he  falsely  informed  the  King  that  the  Greeks,  panic- 
stricken,  were  about  to  sail  away,  and  urging  him  to  cut  off  their 
retreat.  The  advice  was  taken,  and  the  Hellenic  fleet  was  blocked 
up  in  the  bay.  About  the  same  time  the  army  of  Xerxes  on  its  march 
toward  Peloponnesus,  reached  the  bay  of  Salamis,  and  encamped  on 
the  shore.  The  story  is  told  that  the  news  of  these  movements  was 
brought  to  the  Greek  headquarters  on  Salamis  by  Aristeides,  who 
was  just  returning  from  Aegina;  for  early  in  the  spring  of  that  year 
the  Athenians  had  decreed  an  amnesty  to  their  exiles. ^^ 

The  battle  of  Salamis,  480.  In  their  resolution  to  fight,  the 
Greeks  had  high  hopes  of  success,  for  conditions  were  now  more 
favorable  than  they  had  been  at  Artemisium.  The  story  of  the 
battle  is  clearly  and  vividly  narrated  by  the  poet  Aeschylus,  who 
served  among  the  Athenians.  The  speaker  is  a  messenger  to  the 
King's  mother  and  her  councillors  at  Susa: — 

And  night  passed  by,  yet  did  the  Hellene  host 
Essay  in  no  wise  any  secret  flight. 
But  when  the  day  by  white  steeds  chariot-borne. 
Radiant  to  see,  flooded  all  earth  with  light. 
First  from  the  Hellenes  did  a  clamorous  shout 
Ring  for  a  triumphant  chant;  and  wild  and  high 
Pealed  from  the  island  rock  the  answering  cheer 
Of  Echo.     Thrilled  through  all  our  folks  dismay 
Of  baffled  expectation ;  for  the  Greeks 
Not  as  for  flight  that  holy  paean  sang, 
But  straining  battleward  with  heroic  hearts. 
The  trumpet's  blare  set  all  their  lines  aflame. 
Straightway  with  chiming  dip  of  dashing  oars 
They  smote  the  loud  brine  to  the  timing  cry, 
And  suddenly  flashed  they  all  full  into  view, 
Foremost  their  right  wing  seemly-ordered  led 
In  fair  array ;  next,  all  their  armament 
Battleward  swept  on.     Therewithal  was  heard 
A  great  shout  — "  On  ye  sons  of  Hellas,  on ! 
Win  for  the  homeland   freedom !  —  freedom   win 
For  sons,  wives,  temples  of  ancestral  Gods, 
And  old  sires'  graves !     This  day  are  all  at  stake !  " 
Yea,  and  from  us  low  thunder  of  Persian  cheers 
Answered  —  no  time  it  was  for  dallying ! 
Then  straightway  galley  dashed  her  beak  of  bronze 
On  galley.     'Twas  a  Hellene  ship  began 

R.'JHdt.  viii.  49-82;  Aesch.  Pers.  .353  ff . ;  Diod.  xi.  15-17;  Plut.  Them.  11  f . ;  Artst.  8; 
Polyaen.  i.  30.  5.  Amnesty  to  exiles;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  22.  8;  Andoc  Myst.  107  (cf.  77); 
Plut.  Tiinii.  11;  Arist.  8.  Probably  all  were  recalled  except  those  convicted  of  homicide  or 
attempted  tyranny. 


184  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  onset,  and  shore  all  the  figure-head 

From  a  Phanician:  captain  charged  on  captain. 

At  first  the  Persian  navy's  torrent-flood 

Withstood  them ;   but  when  our  vast  fleet  was  cramped 

In  strait-space  —  friend  could  lend  no  aid  to  friend, — 

Then  ours  by  fangs  of  allies'  beaks  of  bronze 

Were  struck,  and  shattered  all  their  oar-array; 

While  with  shrewd  strategy  the  Hellene  ships 

Swept  around,  and  rammed  us,  and  upturned  were  hulls 

Of  ships ;  —  no  more  could  one  discern  the  sea. 

Clogged  all  with  wrecks  and  limbs  of  slaughtered  men : 

The  shores,  the  rock-reefs,  were  with  corpses  strewn. 

Then  rowed  each  bark  in  fleeing  disarray, 

Yea,  every  keel  of  our  barbarian  host. 

They  with  oar-fragments  and  with  shards  of  wrecks 

Smote,  hacked,  as  men  smite  tunnies,  or  a  draught 

Of  fishes;  and  a  moaning,  all  confused 

With  shrieking,  hovered  wide  o'er  that  sea-brine 

Till  night's  dark  presence  blotted  out  the  horror. 

That  swarm  of  woes,  yea,  though  for  ten  days'  space 

I  should  rehearse  could  I  not  tell  in  full. 

Yet  know  this  well,   that  never  in  one  day 

Died  such  a  host,  such  tale  untold,  of  men.^^ 

Xerxes  withdraws  from  Greece.  Too  thoroughly  crippled  to 
renew  the  fight,  the  Persian  fleet  retired  to  Asia.  Thereupon  Themis- 
tocles  urged  the  Greeks  to  sail  forthwith  to  the  Hellespont,  and  by 
destroying  the  bridge  cut  Xerxes  off  from  his  base  of  supplies.  The 
advice  was  sound;  and  if  taken,  would  probably  at  once  have  ended 
the  war;  but  to  the  other  Greeks  the  idea  seemed  too  venturesome, 
and  the  war  continued  another  year.  Xerxes  himself  returned  to 
Asia,  leaving  Mardonius  with  the  best  part  of  the  army.^^ 

The  plan  of  campaign  for  479.  For  the  campaign  of  479  the 
Greeks  so  far  adopted  the  plan  of  Themistocles  as  to  send  a  fleet  of 
a  hundred  and  ten  ships  across  the  Aegean  with  a  view  to  striking 
Persia  in  her  own  territory.  The  armament  was  under  the  chief 
command  of  King  Leotychidas  of  Sparta,  whereas  the  Athenian  force 
was  led  by  Xanthippus,  who  had  returned  from  exile  under  the 
amnesty,  and  had  been  elected  general.  Among  the  Athenians,  how- 
ever, a  revulsion  of  feeling  had  come  in  favor  of  Themistocles'  former 
adversary,  Aristeides,  now  also  a  general.  Obedient  to  their  insistent 
demands,  the  policy  of  defence  at  the  Isthmus  was  abandoned,  and  a 

36  Aesch.  Pers.  384-432  (a  clear,  accurate  account) ;  Hdt.  viii.  83-107  (elaborated  from 
Aeschylus  with  the  addition  of  a  few  other  facts);  Diod.  xi.  18  f . ;  Plut.  Them.  13-17; 
Arist.  9  f. ;   Nepos,   Them.  4;  Justin  ii.   12. 

37  Hdt.  viii.  108-29. 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE  185 

Hellenic  urmy  ^[athered  at  Plataea  for  a  trial  of  strenj^th  with  Mar- 
donius  in  the  open  field.  The  commander  was  Pausanias,  regent  for 
the  young  son  of  Leonidas,  and  the  general  of  the  Athenian  division 
was  Aristeides.  The  Greeks  had  altogether  perhaps  twenty-five  to 
thirty  thousand  heavy  infantry  in  addition  to  light  troops,  and  the 
force  of  the  enemy  could  not  have  been  greatly  superior.^** 

The  battle  of  Plataea,  479.  The  numerous  manoeuvres  and 
counter-manoeuvres,  the  changes  of  position,  the  omens  and  prophecies 
involved  in  the  complex  battle  cannot  be  detailed  here.  From  the 
confused  traditions  certain  facts  stand  out  boldly.  Could  the  Greeks 
choose  their  own  ground,  they  were  certain  of  victory;  the  only  hope 
of  the  Persians  lay  in  taking  them  off  their  guard  or  in  an  unfavorable 
position;  hence  resulted  the  long  postponements  of  the  conflict  and 
the  shiftings  of  position.  While  affairs  were  in  this  condition,  the 
report  of  the  arrival  of  the  Greek  fleet  at  Samos  forced  ISIardonius 
to  battle,  that  he  might  return  as  soon  as  possible  for  the  protection 
of  Ionia.  In  the  retirement  of  the  Hellenic  army  to  a  more  tenable 
position,  some  distance  in  their  rear,  Mardonius  saw  his  opportunity 
to  assail  it  while  in  a  state  of  disorder.  The  main  attack  was  di- 
rected against  the  Peloponnesians.  The  latter  faced  about,  and  "  as 
the  omens  were  unfavorable,"  stood  patiently  under  the  shower  of 
arrows  from  the  enemy's  horsemen.  But  when  the  main  body  of 
Persians  had  drawn  up  within  bowshot  behind  their  fence  of  wicker- 
shields, —  at  this  critical  moment  the  omens  changed,  the  order  to 
charge  was  given,  and  the  heavy  infantry  of  Peloponnese  dashed  at 
a  run  upon  the  enemy's  line.  The  Persians  resisted  bravely;  "but 
when  Mardonius  and  the  men  stationed  around  him  in  the  strongest 
part  of  their  line  had  fallen,  the  rest  turned  and  gave  way  before 
the  Lacedaemonians;  for  their  manner  of  equipment,  without  defen- 
sive armor,  was  an  especial  cause  of  their  losses;  in  fact  they  were 
contending  light-armed  against  hoplites."  ^^  It  is  clear  that  in  the 
complex  movements  at  Plataea  the  leading  fact  is  the  repetition  of  the 
chief  tactical  feature  of  Marathon  —  the  double-quick  charge  of  the 
Hellenic  phalanx  upon  the  line  of  light  Persian  infantry.  The  result 
was  decisive.  The  remnant  of  the  Persian  army  hurriedly  retreated, 
and  the  Greek  peninsula  was  free  from  the  Great  King.*" 

38  Hdt.   ix.    1-32.     Themistocles  temporarily  under  disfavor;   Diod.   xi.   27   (Ephorus).     He 
was  probably  a  general  in  479,  though  not  in  military  command. 

39  Hdt.    ix.   63. 

40  Hdt.   ix.   28-89  — almost  the  only  source  for  Diod.   29-32;   Nepos,  Paus.   1;   Plut.  Arist. 
11-19;  Mai.  Hdt.  41  f.  Ctesias,  Pers.  is  independent. 


186  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  battle  of  Mycale,  479.  The  achievement  of  the  Hellenic 
naval  force  may  be  told  in  fewer  words.  Meeting  no  opposing  fleet, 
the  Greeks  landed  on  the  Ionian  coast,  and  assailed  the  Persians  in- 
trenched at  Mycale.  Asiatic  Greeks  deserted  to  their  kinsmen,  the 
Persian  force  was  destroyed,  and  their  warships,  drawn  upon  the 
shore  and  surrounded  by  a  palisade,  were  burned.  Whereas  other 
battles  of  the  war  had  been  defensive,  this  victory,  pointing  the  way  to 
the  liberation  of  Asiatic  Greece,  began  a  policy  of  aggression  against 
the  Persian  empire.*^ 

Western  Hellas:  economic  and  intellectual  condition.  In  an 
earlier  chapter  we  touched  upon  the  Hellenic  colonization  of  Italy 
and  Sicily  and  the  growth  of  the  new  settlements  in  that  region  to  a 
high  degree  of  economic  prosperity.  This  success  was  due  to  the 
superior  vitality,  quick  intelligence,  and  bold  enterprise  of  the  settlers, 
as  well  as  to  the  fertility  of  their  lands  and  the  great  extent  of  coun- 
try open  to  their  exploitation.  Far,  however,  from  devoting  them- 
selves solely  to  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  the  colonists  for  a  long 
time  advanced  beyond  the  mother  country  in  cultural  development. 
In  the  "  intellectual  awakening  "  of  Hellas  they  had  their  full  share, 
particularly  in  the  fields  of  architecture  and  philosophy;  and  as  the 
Asiatic  Greeks  declined  under  foreign  rule,  the  cultural  leadership  of 
Hellas  temporarily  passed  to  the  Western  Greeks. *- 

Aristocracy  and  tyranny.  The  earliest  settlers,  dividing  the 
lands  among  themselves,  tended  to  form  themselves  into  a  closed  aris- 
tocracy. The  natives  who  tilled  their  fields  were  serfs;  *^  and  the 
fishermen  and  traders,  who  collected  in  every  coast  town,  constituted 
the  commons,  who  were  citizens  with  inferior  privileges.  Class  con- 
flicts inevitably  led  to  tyrannies.  The  result  was  that  before  the  close 
of  the  sixth  century  nearly  every  Greek  city  in  Sicily  had  fallen  under 
despotic  rule.  Those  of  Italy  were  governed  either  by  tyrants  or 
Pythagorean  brotherhoods.  In  the  West,  as  in  the  East,  each  com- 
munity went  its  own  way  with  little  heed  to  the  general  Hellenic 
interest. 

Enemies  of  western  Hellas:  the  Etruscans.  This  particular- 
ism, while  acting  as  a  powerful  cultural  stimulus,  wrought  little 
harm  so  long  as  the  Hellenes  had  to  deal  merely  with  foreign  states 

41  Hdt.  ix.  96-106;  Diod.  xi.  34-6. 

42  Western  colonies;    p.    61   ff.     Their   culture   is   shown    in   the   Pythagorean   and    Eleatic 
schools  of  philosophy   (p.   276   f.)  and  in  their  splendid  temples. 

4  3  Lords  and  serfs  in  Syracuse;   Mar.   Par.   36;   Hdt.   vii.   155;   Timaeus,  FHG.   I.   p.  204. 
56;    Arist.    Frag.    586;    Dion.    Hal.    vi.    62. 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE         187 

as  small  as  their  own.  In  time,  however,  in  the  West  as  well  as  in  the 
East,  they  had  to  confront  great  military  powers.  Politically  the 
most  important  people  thus  far  in  Italy  were  the  Etruscans.  In 
origin  decadent  Minoans,  they  had  received  from  their  mingling  with 
the  native  Italians  a  new  vitality  and  an  aggressiveness  in  war  which 
made  them  formidable  to  their  neighbors.  In  the  beginning  of  the 
fifth  century  they  held  not  only  Etruria  and  parts  of  the  Po  basin 
farther  north,  but  also  the  most  of  Campania  and  the  coast  region 
to  the  south  nearly  to  Posidonia.  In  the  opinion  of  Cato  the  Censor 
they  governed  the  greater  part  of  Italy. ''^ 

The  Phoenicians  and  the  Carthaginian  empire.  While  the 
Etruscans  were  developing  this  power  within  the  peninsula,  the  Phoe- 
nicians were  threatening  to  take  possession  of  the  islands  and  remain- 
ing coasts  of  the  middle  and  western  Mediterranean.  For  a  time  they 
had  to  yield  ground  to  the  Greeks  in  both  Sicily  and  Spain.  In 
Africa,  west  of  Cyrenaica,  however,  the  Phoenicians  were  compara- 
tively free  to  work  out  their  own  destiny.  On  and  near  the  African 
coast  opposite  Sicily,  there  grew  up  a  group  of  colonies,  the  most  im- 
portant of  which  was  Carthage.  Toward  the  end  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury this  city  won  the  leadership  over  her  near  neighbors,  and  began 
to  develop  a  naval  power,  the  foundation  of  her  future  empire.  Her 
ambition  was  to  gather  under  her  leadership  and  protection  all  the 
Phoenician  colonies  of  the  Mediterranean  and  to  win  as  much  new 
territory  as  possible  for  the  race.  In  Sicily  they  gained  ground. 
In  Sardinia  they  won  a  footing  (about  600),  though  they  never 
succeeded  there  in  occupying  more  than  the  coasts.  The  Phoenician 
settlements  in  Spain  acknowledged  the  leadership  of  Carthage  — 
while  the  African  coast  became  hers,  from  Cyrenaica  to  Lyxus  on 
the  Atlantic  (before  500). 

Carthaginians  and  Etruscans  combine;  the  Phocaeans  driven 
from  Corsica,  540.  Naturally  Carthage  had  entered  into  close  com- 
mercial relations  with  the  Etruscans,  a  people  of  similar  character. 
About  550  she  had  begun  to  form  treaties  with  the  individual  coast 
towns  of  Etruria  for  the  regulation  of  trade  ^^  and  for  the  defence 
of  their  common  interests  against  the  Greeks.  The  first  Hellenes 
to  suffer  from  this  alliance  were  the  Phocaean  colonists  in  Corsica. 
In  a  naval  battle  between  them  and  the  combined  fleets  of  the  allies, 

44Strabo  v.  1.  10;  2.  1-3;  4.  2  f. ;  Polyb.  ii.  17;  Cato,  Frag.  62  (Peter). 
45  Arist.  Polit.  iii.  5.  11,  1280  a. 


188  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

they  were  overwhelmingly  beaten  (540),  and  were  forced  in  conse- 
quence to  abandon  Corsica.  This  was  the  first  important  loss  of 
territor)'  suffered  by  the  Hellenes  in  the  West.^'' 

The  new  war  policy  of  Carthage.  At  Carthage  toward  the  end 
of  the  same  century  the  office  of  general,  newly  instituted,  fell  to  a 
certain  Mago,  who  used  his  position  for  a  thorough  reorganization  of 
the  army.  It  was  henceforth  to  consist  largely  of  mercenaries,  re- 
cruited from  the  fresh  warlike  native  races  of  the  western  Mediterra- 
nean countries.  Thereafter  few  citizens  of  Carthage  served  excepting 
as  officers.  Their  immense  financial  resources  could  thus  be  con- 
verted into  sinews  of  war,  and  a  policy  of  conquest  could  be  inaugu- 
rated without  disturbance  to  the  money-making  pursuits  of  the  great 
commercial  city.^^ 

Carthaginian  invasion  of  Sicily.  The  first  use  made  of  the 
system  was  to  be  for  the  conquest  of  Sicily.  While  therefore  Xerxes 
was  preparing  his  stupendous  expedition  against  Eastern  Hellas,  the 
Carthaginians,  doubtless  in  concert  with  him,  were  recruiting  a 
great  mercenary  force  for  the  invasion  of  Sicily.  In  480  Hamilcar, 
Mago's  son,  led  forth  the  armament.  The  numbers  given  by  the 
ancients  are  two  hundred  ships  of  war,  three  thousand  transports, 
and  three  hundred  thousand  men;  herein  we  may  discover  an  at- 
tempt of  the  Sicilian  historians  to  make  their  glory  equal  that  of 
the  victors  at  Salamis  and  Plataea.  Two  hundred  triremes  there  may 
have  been;  but  the  other  numbers  are  exaggerated  beyond  our  power 
to  correct.** 

The  tyrants;  Gelon  of  Syracuse.  It  was  fortunate  that  the 
Western  Greeks  had  made  progress  toward  political  unification. 
Anaxilas,  tyrant  of  Rhegium  (494-476),  had  seized  Zancle  across 
the  strait,  and  recolonizing  it  with  a  mixed  multitude,  had  named  it 
Messene  after  his  native  land.  Meanwhile  in  southern  Sicily  a  suc- 
cession of  powerful  tyrants  of  Gela  had  extended  their  city's  sway 
over  several  neighboring  states.  The  last  and  greatest  of  these  despots 
was  Gelon,  a  young  cavalry  officer  of  remarkable  genius  in  war  and 
statecraft.  Opportunely  the  serfs  of  Syracuse  had  risen  against  the 
lords  and  had  violently  expelled  them.  Gladly  espousing  the  cause 
of  the  exiles.  Gelon  made  himself  master  of  Syracuse,  but  instead  of 
restoring  the  city  to  the  landlords,  he  faithlessly  held  it  for  himself, 

46  Hdt.  i.  165-7;  Diod.  v.  13;  xi.  88. 

47  Justin  xviii.   7;   xix.    1. 

48  Ephorus,  FHG.  I.  p.  264.  Ill;  Hdt.  vii.  165;  Diod.  xi.  20. 


THE  WAR  WITH  PERSIA  AND  CARTHAGE  189 

and  took  uj)  his  residence  there.  With  still  less  moral  scruple,  he 
enlarged  his  new  capital  by  transplanting  to  it  the  wealthier  citizens 
of  neighboring  towns  he  conquered,  while  the  poorer  class  he  sold 
into  slavery,  merely  remarking:  "  Common  men  are  an  undesirable 
element  in  a  state."  Thus  it  came  about  that  by  energy  and  cunning 
Gelon  had  united  all  southeastern  Sicily  under  his  rule.*" 

The  battle  of  Himera,  480.  To  strengthen  himself  further  he 
had  married  Damareta,  daughter  of  Theron,  despot  of  the  flourishing 
city  of  Acragas.  Scarcely  less  ambitious  than  his  son-in-law,  Theron 
had  annexed  Himera  to  his  domain,  after  expelling  its  tyrant  Terillus. 
The  combination  of  the  powerful  tyrants  of  Syracuse  and  Acragas 
threatened  Phoenician  interests  in  Sicily,  and  led  to  the  Carthaginian 
invasion,  wherein  the  exiled  Terillus  played  the  part  of  a  Hippias, 
and  Anaxilas,  kinsman  of  the  former,  promised  his  cooperation.  The 
invaders  laid  siege  to  Himera,  and  the  great  battle  was  fought  be- 
neath its  walls,  Gelon  and  Theron  against  the  Carthaginians,  "  Hellas 
against  Canaan."  Survivors  of  the  invading  army  afterward  re- 
ported that  all  day  long,  as  the  battle  raged,  Hamilcar  in  Semitic 
style  stood  apart  from  his  host,  bent  on  winning  aid  of  the  gods  by 
offering  them  the  entire  bodies  of  sacrificed  victims  on  a  great  pyre; 
"  and  when  he  saw  there  was  a  rout  of  his  own  army,  he  being  then, 
as  it  chanced,  in  the  act  of  pouring  a  libation  over  the  sacrifices, 
threw  himself  into  the  fire,  and  thus  he  was  burned  up  and  removed 
from  sight."  The  details  are  uncertain,  the  results  well  known.  A 
great  part  of  the  fleet  went  up  in  flames;  the  army  was  uterly  over- 
thrown; vast  spoils  and  countless  prisoners,  made  slaves,  enriched 
the  victors.  To  save  her  dependencies  in  Sicily,  Carthage  bought 
peace  with  a  heavy  war  indemnity.  The  victors  were  proudly  con- 
scious of  having  done  their  part  in  freeing  Hellas  from  the  barbarian 
peril;  and  in  just  appreciation  Pindar  associated  Himera  on  equal 
terms  with  Salamis  and  Plataea.^° 

49  Anaxilas;  Thuc.  vi.  4.  5  f . ;  Diod.  xi.  48.  2.  Gelon;  Hdt.  vii.  153-6;  Arist.  Polit.  v. 
3.  5,  1302  b. 

soTimaeus,  FHG.  I.  p.  213  f.  86,  80;  Hdt.  vii.  165-7;  Diod.  xi.  20-3;  Polyaen.  I.  27; 
Find.  Pyth.   i.   75  ff. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  238-264,  265-311;  Holm,  II,  chs.  i-vi;  Grote,  V,  chs.  xxxviii-xliii; 
Beloch,  II,  17-74;  Busolt,  II,  557-806;  Meyer,  III,  318-417;  Freeman,  History 
of  Sicily  (Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1891-4),  II,  chs.  v,  vi;  Grundy,  Great 
Persian  War;  Cavaignac,  Historic  de  Vantiquite  (Paris,  1913),  I. 


FRAGMENTS   OF  THE  THEMISTOCLEAN  WALL 

CHAPTER  XII 
THE  AGE  OF  THE  WAR  HEROES 

I.     Political  and  Economic 

479-461 


A  retrospect  of  the  war.  For  an  appreciation  of  the  Persian  war 
and  of  its  effect  on  subsequent  history  let  us  first  inquire  what 
was  at  stake  in  the  conflict.  What  would  have  resulted  had  Persia 
won  the  battles  of  Salamis  and  Plataea?/  The  war  would  by  no 
means  have  ended,  for  there  were  Greek  communities  that  would  have 
shed  their  last  drop  of  blood  in  the  fight  for  freedom.  Of  that  fact 
Thermopylae  gave  evidence.  But  what  if  in  the  end  Persia  had  con- 
quered ?  A  costly  undertaking  it  would  have  been  to  hold  peninsular 
Hellas  in  subjection;  the  lean  tribute,  the  heavy  debit  column  of  the 
Hellenic  satrap,  might  soon  have  expelled  the  conqueror.  However 
that  may  be,  the  permanent  occupation  of  Greece  would  doubtless 
have  been  a  calamity  to  civilization.  Although  Greeks  and  Persians 
were  alike  of  Indo-European  speech,  there  could  have  been  no  con- 
siderable racial  element  common  to  the  two  peoples.^  Through  the 
influence  of  environment  the  Persians  were  becoming  essentially  Orien- 
tal.    Originally   a   fresh   virile  race  of  mountaineers,  they  rapidly 


1  On  race  mixing,  see  p.  25  above. 


190 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  191 

submitted  to  the  culture  of  the  Tigris-Euphrates  valley.  It  was  a 
(luestion  therefore  whether  the  Hellenes  should  be  brought  more  or 
less  directly  under  Babylonian  influence.  The  half-century  of  Ori- 
ental domination  over  Ionia  has  been  offered  as  evidence  that  Hellen- 
ism prospered  under  such  conditions.'  In  answer  it  may  be  said  that 
fifty  years  are  but  a  brief  season  in  the  life  of  a  people,  and  that  in 
truth  the  cultural  glory  of  Asiatic  Hellas  had  largely  passed  away 
before  the  battle  of  Plataea.  The  fact  remains  unshaken  that  in 
Hellas  the  existence  of  city-states,  free  in  government  and  unham- 
pered in  their  mutual  friendships  and  rivalries,  was  essential  to  any 
considerable  cultural  progress. 

Shall  Orientals  or  Greeks  dominate  Europe?  While  granting 
that  battles  are  but  a  part  —  perhaps  the  merely  superficial  manifesta- 
tion—  of  a  larger  conflict  of  minds  and  of  economic,  social,  and 
political  forces,  we  must  maintain  that  the  struggle  in  its  broadest, 
deepest  sense  involved  the  question  whether  Orientals  or  Greeks  should 
dominate  the  civilization  of  Europe,  whether  that  continent  was  to 
pursue  an  independent  development  or  become  a  mere  appanage  of 
Asia.  The  result,  all-decisive  and  infinitely  more  far-reaching  than 
the  contemporary  Hellenes  dreamed  of,  signified  that  it  lay  in  their 
hands  to  determine  for  the  future  the  cultural  progress  of  the  world. 

Religious  effects  of  the  war.  The  first  conscious  effect  of  the 
unexpected,  overwhelming  success  was  religious  —  the  punishment  of 
the  invaders  for  their  sacrilege:  — 

There  ^  waiteth  them  disaster's  deepest  depth, 

Requiting  insolence  and  godless  pride. 

For  these,  to  Hellas  coming,  did  not  fear 

To  tear  down  statues,   burn  the  fanes  of  gods :  — 

Altars  have  vanished;  hurled  in  ruin  heaps 

Gods'  temples  from  their  basements  are  upheaved. 

Therefore  do  these  ill-doers  suffer  ills 

Not  less,  and  some  are  yet  to  come :  not  yet 

The  dregs  of  woe  are  reached;  the  cup  brims  still; 

So  huge  a  slaughter  —  oozing  swath  shall  load 

"Plataea's  soil,  reaped  by  the  Dorian  spear.* 

J 

Religious  effects  on  art,  literature,  and  thought.  The  suc- 
cess of  the  few  Hellenes  ovei-  that  vastly  superior  force  could  have 
but  one  explanation.     "  The  might  of  God  is  above  theirs,  and  often 

2  Beloch,   Griech.   Gesch.   II.   1.   74  f. 

3  At  Plataea.     This  quotation  applies  to  the  Persian  invaders  after  the  battle  of  Salamis 
but  before   that  of  Plataea. 

4  Aeschylus,   Persians,   807  ff.    This  passage  applies  to  the   Persian  invaders  before  the 
battle  of  Plataea, 


192  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

in  the  midst  of  evils  it  raises  up  the  helpless,  even  when  clouds  of 
perplexing  distress  hang  over  his  eyes."  ^  This  wave  of  religious 
devotion  checked  for  a  time  the  growth  of  scepticism,  and  with  the 
spoils  of  war,  gratefully  erected  to  the  gods  richer  and  more  beau- 
tiful temples  than  Hellas  had  known  before,  and  adorned  them  with 
sacred  sculptures.  In  literature  the  same  spirit  found  no  less  worthy 
expression  in  Aeschylus,  whose  dramas  lift  Hellenic  religion  to  a 
loftier  and  holier  plane,  and  in  Herodotus,  who  "  records  the  great 
events  of  the  Persian  wars  with  a  profoundly  religious  awe."" 

Effects  on  government.  The  conflict  left  an  effect,  too,  on  gov- 
ernment. As  freedom  had  won,  it  was  inevitable  that  she  should 
grow  and  thrive  on  her  success.  In  West  and  East  tyrannies  and 
oligarchies  gave  way  to  democracy,  and  democratic  constitutions 
took  on  more  popular  forms.  Victory  wrought  her  spell  also  on 
Hellenic  —  interstate  —  politics.  It  was  a  noble  thought,  born  of 
the  battle  of  Plataea,  that  Hellas  should  form  a  grand  everlasting 
federation,  at  peace  with  herself  and  exercising  her  weapons  against 
none  but  foreigners."  But  the  common  foe  was  too  badly  beaten, 
and  Hellenic  particularism  was  too  strong,  for  the  dream  to  come 
true.  The  consciousness  of  racial  unity  grew;  interstate  politics, 
developing  beyond  its  narrow  cantonal  beginnings,  became  world 
politics;  the  Hellenes  took  their  place  as  the  dominant  power  in  the 
Mediterranean  basin ,  but  after  a  time  the  feuds  and  rivalries,  hushed 
by  the  great  peril,  broke  out  afresh,  and  while  stimulating  cultural 
activity,  gradually  capped  the  strength  of  the  nation. 

Heroization  nl  the  victors.  One  of  the  most  obvious  effects  of 
the  war  was  to  heroize  the  victors.  What  were  the  deeds  of  Achaean s 
round  Troy  compared  with  the  prowess  of  Marathon  and  Salamis 
and  Plataea,  where  a  few  patriots,  relying  on  the  gods  and  their  own 
valor,  had  trampled  on  the  strength  of  the  mightiest  of  empires? 
They  were  demigods  who  fell  at  Thermopylae,  where,  as  their 
epitaph  informed  the  visitor,  "  theirs  was  a  fair-famed  lot  and  envied 
death,  their  tomb  a  shrine;  instead  of  tears  was  a  remembrance  of 
their  deeds,  in  place  of  lamentation,  glory."  ®  Demigods,  too,  were 
those  who  survived,  in  proud  consciousness  of  their  own  strength  to 
work   out   a   nobler  destiny   for  their   race.     As   time   elapsed,   the 

5  Aesch.  Seven  against  Thebes,  226  ff. 
c  Sillier,   Testi-.npniuni  Animae,  160. 

7  Plutarch,    Aristrides,    21.     The    existence    of    such    a    project    has    been    unnecessarily 
loubted   by  some   historians. 

8  Simonidfa  io  Diod.  xi    :1.    Other  epitaphs  from  his  hand:  H.  Civ.  no.  51. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  193 

memory  of  their  achievements  brightened,  till  the  entire  conflict  radi- 
ated a  superhuman  glory.  A  patriot  of  the  fourth  century  wrote: 
"  Methinks  the  war  must  have  been  contrived  by  some  God  in  ad- 
miration for  their  bravery,  that  men  of  such  quality  might  not  re- 
main obscure  or  end  their  lives  in  humble  state,  but  might  be  deemed 
worthy  of  the  same  rewards  as  those  sons  of  heaven  whom  we  call 
demigods;  for  even  their  bodies  the  Deity  rendered  up  to  the  un- 
yielding laws  of  nature,  but  immortalized  the  memory  of  their  valor."  ^ 
1/  The  future  of  the  Hellenic  league.  The  immediate  problem  con- 
fronting Greece  had  to  do  with  the  Hellenic  federation  formed  for 
defence  against  Persia.  It  was  to  continue,  but  under  what  govern- 
ment and  organization?  Naturally  the  Spartans  expected  to  re- 
tain the  leadership;  for  theirs  was  the  strongest  military  power  in 
Hellas;  to  their  command  a  majority  of  the  allies  had  long  been 
accustomed  and  although  in  the  recent  war  the  initiative  and  the 
enthusiasm  came  from  Athens,  the  Peloponnesian  league,  Sparta's 
creation,  had  formed  the  backbone  of  resistance  to  the  invader. 
These  circumstances  determined  that  at  least  for  the  immediate 
future  Lacedaemon  should  remain  at  the  head  of  the  league. 

The  condition  of  Lacedaemon.  For  a  long  time,  however,  changes 
had  been  taking  place  in  that  state  which  were  rendering  the  Spar- 
tans unfit  for  this  great  function.  It  is  true  that  the  area  of  their 
country  was  considerably  larger,  and  the  population  greater,  than 
that  of  any  other  Greek  state.  Two  thirds  of  the  people,  however,  'y 
were  serfs,  who,  far  from  rendering  appreciable  service  in  war, 
were  so  ill-willed  as  constantly  to  menace  the  general  safety.  The 
perioeci  were  still  loyal;  but  dependent  on  their  own  hands  for  a 
livelihood,  they  could  give  little  time  to  military  training  and  could 
serve  only  in  limited  numbers,  while  their  inferior  status  inevitably 
rendered  them  less  willing  for  duty.  Whereas  the  number  of  helots 
and  perioeci  probably  remained  unimpaired,  that  of  the  Spartans 
steadily  shrank. ^° 

Economic  and  political  decline.     Under  the  crushing  economic 
restraints  described  in  an  earlier  chapter  ^^  many  men  were  so  impov- 

9  Isocrates,  Panegyricus,  84. 

10  The  area  of  Lacedaemon  was  above  3000  sq.  mi.  The  population  at  this  time  was 
probably  400,000,  of  whom  25,000  were  Spartans,  75,000  were  perioeci,  and  300,000  were 
helots;  Grundy,  in  JHS.  XXVIII  (1908).  77  ff.  His  reasoning  seems  sound,  and  his  esti- 
mates therefore  appear  to  be  better  founded  than  those  of  Meyer,  Gesch.  d.  Alt.  III.  465 
f. ,  who  reduces  these  numbers  by  about  one  fourth.  Pelbriick's  estimates  {Kriegsk.  I.  35) 
are  still  lower.  ^ 

11  Chapter  VI. 


194  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

erished  as  to  forfeit  their  civic  rights,  together  with  their  place  in 
the  army.  Sooner  or  later,  therefore,  the  Spartans  were  destined  to 
lose  their  military  preponderance.  Equally  fatal  to  the  stability  of 
their  leadership  was  the  continued  decline  in  culture  and  intelligence,^^ 
while  many  of  their  allies  were  already  vastly  superior  in  these 
respects,  and  were  still  rapidly  progressing. 

The  question  as  to  the  fortification  of  Athens.  It  was  mainly 
with  a  view  to  centralizing  the  Lacedaemonian  power  that  the  ephors 
requested  the  Athenians,  after  the  return  of  the  population  from 
exile,  not  to  rebuild  their  walls  but  to  ioin  rather  with  the  Spartans 
in  razing  the  fortifications  of  all  Hellenic  cities  outside  Peloponnesus. 
Should  the  Persians  again  invade  Greece,  they  argued,  the  Isthmian 
rampart  would  be  the  best  possible  defence. ^^  Had  Athens  and  the 
other  extra-Peloponnesian  cities  thus  become  dependencies  of  Sparta, 
the  political  unification  of  Hellas  might  at  this  early  time  have  been 
realized,  yet  at  a  tremendous  cost  to  civilization.  The  crisis  was  met 
by  the  wily  Themistocles.  While  the  Athenians  were  rebuilding  their 
wall  in  the  manner  described  below,^*  he  went  as  envoy  to  Sparta, 
where  by  a  succession  of  audacious  falsehoods  he  delayed  the  action 
of  the  ephors  until  the  substantial  completion  of  the  defence.  Thus 
his  promptness  snatched  a  most  vital  interest  of  his  city  even  from 
the  hazard  of  debate  in  the  Hellenic  council. 

The  question  of  protecting  the  Asiatic  Greeks.  Another  ques- 
tion, only  second  in  its  consequences,  which  pressed  for  settlement  on 
the  morrow  of  the  victory  at  Mycale,  was  the  liberation  of  the 
Asiatic  Greeks  from  the  yoke  of  Persia.  Having  failed  in  their 
own  effort,  they  now  rested  their  hopes  of  independence  in  the  mighty 
federation  of  their  European  kin.  Spokesmen  of  the  lonians,  coming 
to  the  Hellenic  headquarters  at  Samos  (479),  pleaded  for  admission 
into  the  league,  for  rescue  and  protection  from  Persia.  For  the 
maintenance  of  their  freedom,  after  it  should  be  won,  a  permanent 
fleet  in  the  Aegean,  and  perhaps  strong  garrisons  for  the  cities,  would 
be  required;  and  the  Lacedaemonians  lacked  both  the  means  and 
the  will  for  carrying  such  a  burden.  They  proposed  therefore 
to  expel  from  their  homes  the  European  Greeks  who  had  medized, 
and  to  transplant  the  Asiatic  Hellenes  to  the  lands  thus  vacated. 
To  the  latter  folk  a  migration  would  have  been  an  insupportable 

12  P.   100,   n.   45. 

13  Thucydides  i.  90  f. 

14  P.  197. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  195 

hardship;  and  Xanthippus  and  his  colleagues,  the  commanders  of 
the  Athenian  force,  would  not  listen  to  the  proposal.  These  Greeks 
are  our  colonists,  they  protested  in  substance,  and  we  stand  ready 
to  give  them  the  desired  protection.  The  Lacedaemonians  gladly 
shifted  the  burden  to  the  shoulders  of  the  Athenians,  whose  command- 
ers thereupon  entered  into  close  relations  of  friendship  and  alliance 
witli  the  deputies  of  the  lonians.  This  was  the  small  beginning  of  a 
union  which  afterward  develoiied  into  the  Dclian  confederacy.^^ 

The  transfer  of  the  naval  leadership  from  Lacedaemon  to 
Athens,  478.  Still  clinging  to  the  naval  leadership,  Lacedaemon, 
in  the  following  year,  sent  out  a  fleet  of  fifty  triremes  under  the 
regent  Pausanias.  Thirty  of  these  ships  were  Athenian,  commanded 
by  Aristeides  and  other  generals;  and  the  maritime  allies  added  their 
squadrons.  After  a  partial  conquest  of  Cyprus,  Pausanias  sailed 
to  the  Hellespont  and  laid  siege  to  Byzantium,  then  occupied  by  a 
Persian  garrison.  The  fall  of  the  city  reopened  the  strait  to  the  im- 
portation of  grain  from  the  Pontus.  During  the  siege  Pausanias 
arrogantly  treated  the  allies  as  inferior  to  the  Spartans,  subjecting 
them  to  severe  punishments  and  driving  them  with  whips.  ISIean- 
while  the  courtesy  and  gentleness  of  Aristeides  and  his  colleagues 
won  their  affection,  till  finally  they  revolted  against  the  tyrant  and 
placed  themselves  under  Athenian  leadership.  Pausanias  was  re- 
called, and  eventually  the  Lacedaemonians  yielded  the  naval  com- 
mand to  Athens  (early  in  477).  They  saw  no  advantage  to  them- 
selves in  continuing  the  war  with  Persia,  nor  had  they  a  commander 
whom  they  could  trust  abroad.  They  felt,  too,  that  Athens  was 
competent  to  the  task  and  friendly  to  themselves;  so  that,  while 
she  performed  for  them  a  disagreeable  but  necessary  function,  they 
would  remain  in  fact  leaders  of  Hellas.^" 

Fitness  of  the  Athenians  for  leadership.  It  was  an  enterprise 
which  the  Athenians  were  eagerly  awaiting.  They  had  been  the  soul 
of  the  Hellenic  war  of  freedom;  their  success  had  given  them  self- 
confidence  and  ambition;  in  contrast  with  the  sluggish  conserva- 
tism of  Peloponnese,  they  now  displayed  a  bold  radicalism  and  a 
marvellous  adaptability  to  new  conditions.  Altliough  their  territory 
was  far  smaller  than  that  of  Sparta,  the  creation  of  a  great  fleet  had 
given  scope  to  the  naval  service  of  the  poorest  class,  and  had  ren- 

■L5H.  Civ.  no.  67;  Diod.  xi.  37.  ..         ,       .  , 

1 6  Importation   of   grain    from   the   Pontus   before   the   war;    Hdt.    vii.    147.     Arrogance   of 

Pausanias;   Plut.   Arist.  23;   Cim.   6.     Transfer  of  leadership;   H.   Civ.  no.   68;    Anst.   Const. 

Ath.  23;  Diod.  xi.  44.    Other  sources;  Hill,  Sources  for  Greek  History,  pp.  5-11. 


196  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

dered  the  whole  male  population  of  military  age  available  for  war. 
Their  navy,  too,  was  at  hand,  ready  for  the  very  object  which  now 
presented  itself. 

.^  Organization  of  the  Delian  Confederacy,  477.  As  the  represen- 
tative of  Athens,  Aristeides  arranged  a  treaty  of  offensive  and  de- 
fensive alliance  with  the  maritime  Greeks.  Casting  masses  of  iron  into 
the  sea,  they  swore  to  remain  faithful  to  their  obligations  till  this 
metal  should  rise  and  float  on  the  surface.  The  allies,  on  their 
part,  agreed  to  render  the  money  contributions  and  perform  the 
required  services,  while  the  Athenians  swore  to  maintain  unimpaired 
the  constitutions  of  individual  communities.  The  independence  of  a 
Greek  state  consisted  essentially  in  (1)  the  right  to  live  under 
whatever  government  it  pleased,  (2)  the  right  to  enter  into  relations 
of  war,  peace,  and  alliance  with  others.  A  congress  of  deputies 
from  allies  was  to  meet  under  Athenian  presidency  at  the  sanctuary 
of  the  Delian  Apollo,  to  deliberate  on  the  welfare  of  the  league.  As 
the  seat  of  an  amphictyony  still  in  existence,  Delos  was  to  be  the 
centre  of  the  new  political  union,  while  the  temple  of  the  god  was  to 
serve  as  a  repository  of  the  confederate  funds.  The  new  union, 
however,  was  patterned,  not  so  much  after  the  amphictyony,  as  after 
the  Peloponnesian  league.  In  one  respect  it  marked  a  great  advance 
upon  the  latter  institution.  Whereas  the  Peloponnesians,  depending 
mainly  upon  land  forces,  had  little  need  of  a  common  treasury,  the 
confederacy  of  Delos  required  a  permanent  fleet,  which  necessitated 
a  system  of  regular  taxation.  This  new  element  made  possible  a 
centralization  of  power  and  a  consequent  efficiency  wholly  unknown 
to  the  Peloponnesian  league.^'' 

The  tribute.  Aristeides  was  commissioned  to  apportion  the  bur- 
den. Evidently  he  first  calculated  that  a  fleet  of  two  hundred  tri- 
remes would  have  to  be  maintained  during  the  seven  months  of  naval 
campaigning  from  March  to  October.  As  the  crew  of  a  trireme  num- 
bered about  two  hundred,  and  the  pay  at  this  time  was  evidently 
two  obols  a  day,  the  total  cost  of  maintaining  the  armament  would 
but  slightly  exceed  four  hundred  and  sixty  talents  Necessarily  some 
campaigns  would  be  longer,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  entire  force  of 
two  hundred  ships  would  rarely  be  required.  Shorter  and  lesser 
campaigns  would  leave  a  balance  that  could  be  applied  to  the  build- 

17  H.  Civ.   no.  68;   Arist.   Const.  Alh.  23;   Plut.  Arist.  24  f.     Meaning  of  the  ceremony  of 
sinking  iron;   Ildt.   i.    165;   Horace,  Epod.   16.  25.     Independence  of  the  allies;   Thuc.   i.  97 
98;   iii.   10.    Equality  in  votes;  ib.  iii.  11. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  197 

inji;  and  repair  of  ships.  Aristeides  accordingly  set  the  entire  cost 
of  maintaining  the  fleet  at  four  hundred  and  sixty  talents,  which 
he  apportioned  among  the  allies  according  to  their  several  capabilities. 
The  larger  states,  as  Aihens,.  Lesbos,  Chios,  Samos,  Naxos  and 
Thasos,  were  to  bear  their  share  by  furnishing  ships  with  their  crews; 
the  smaller  states  in  general,  finding  it  inconvenient  to  build  and 
equip  triremes,  were  permitted  to  pay  money  instead.  All,  however, 
were  equally  free  and  were  represented  in  the  Delian  congress.  The 
treasurers,  as  well  as  the  presidents  of  the  congress  and  the  chief 
admirals  of  the  navy,  were  Athenians.  The  work  of  assessment  re- 
quired great  labor  and  travel,  and  still  more,  patience,  probity  and 
tact.  It  was  accomplished  to  the  satisfaction  of  all;  "  for  as  the 
ancients  celebrated  the  Age  of  Cronos,  the  Athenian  allies  held  in 
memory  the  taxation  of  Aristeides."  It  seems  to  have  been  this 
achievement  which  earned  for  him  the  title  of  "  the  Just."  ^* 

Expansion   of   the   Confederacy,   479-468.     Tlie~^ork  of  ex- 
panding  the  confederacy   fell   chiefly  to  Cimon,   son   of   Miltiades. 
Under  his  command  it  progressed  steadily  through  successive  years. 
After  expelling  the  Persians  from  their  remaining  positions  on  the 
coasts  of  the  Aegean  sea,  in  468  he  sailed  with  two  hundred  ships  of 
war  along  the  Carian  and  Lycian  seaboard,  bringing  the  coast  people, 
both  Greeks  and  foreigners,  into  the  confederacy.     At  the  mouth  of 
the  Eurj^medon  he  met  and  defeated  a  great  Phoenician  fleet;  then     , 
landing,  he  routed  a  Persian  army  and  seized  its  camp.     Enormous     1 
spoils  were  the  reward  of  victory.     The  Persian  hope  of  regaining 
lost  ground,   maintained   to   this   time,   now   vanished.     Tacitly   the     ^ 
Athenians  were  acknowledged  masters  of  the  Aegean  sea.^^ 

Fortification  of  Athens,  479.  Meanwhile  great  changes  were 
taking  place  at  Athens.  On  their  return  from  exile  toward  the  end 
of  479,  the  Athenians  had  found  their  walls  demolished  and  the 
city  in  ruins.  Their  first  care,  as  explained  above,  was  the  rebuild- 
ing of  the  fortifications,  on  which  their  independence  rested.  The 
advice  of  the  Spartans  to  desist  they  set  at  naught,  and  applied 
themselves  —  men,  women,  and  children  —  with  feverish  haste  to  the 
work.  "  The  foundations  are  made  up  of  all  sorts  of  stones,  in 
some  places  unwrought,  and  laid  just  as  each  worker  brought  them; 

isThuc.  i.  96  (H.  Civ.  no.  68);  Plut.  Arist.  24.  Ten  Athenian  treasurers,  called  Hel- 
lenic treasurers  (Hellenotaniiae) ;  IG.  I.  259  f.  Doubt  was  cast  on  the  probity  of  Aris- 
teides  by  the   historian   Craterus;    Plut.    Arist.    26. 

19  Thucydides  i.    100;   Diod.   xi,   60-2;    Plut.    Cim.    12   f. 


198  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

there  were  many  columns,  too,  taken  from  tombs,  and  many  old  stones 
already  cut,  inserted  in  the  work."  The  structure  was  about  six 
and  a  half  feet  in  width  and  perhaps  sixteen  feet  high,  strengthened 
at  intervals  with  towers.  It  was  a  modest  defence  yet  sufficient 
against  the  crude  siege  engines  of  those  times.  The  entire  circuit,  of 
little  less  than  four  miles,  included  a  larger  space  than  had  hitherto 
been  enclosed.  The  form  remained  roughly  a  wheel  with  the  Acrop- 
olis for  a  hub.  Thinking  that  this  height  would  still  be  used  as  a 
citadel,  Themistocles  began  the  improvement  of  its  defences;  in  this 
work  he  applied  the  marble  drums  of  the  projected  Athena  temple  to 
increasing  the  height  and  steepness  of  a  part  of  the  northern  rim. 
These  fortifications  were  due  to  his  initiative  and  cleverness,  supported 
by  the  patriotic  energy  of  all  the  citizens.  Their  leader  had  in- 
curred the  deadly  hatred  of  Sparta,  but  the  freedom  of  their  city  was 
now  secure.  ^° 

Homes  of  gods  and  men.  The  Athenians  had  as  yet  no  re- 
sources for  rebuilding  their  temples.  For  the  present,  temporary 
dwellings  for  the  gods  had  to  suffice,  while  their  own  homes  were 
mostly  small  rude  cabins,  of  sun-dried  bricks,  hastily  erected  on  the 
old  sites  along  the  narrow,  crooked,  unpaved  lanes  which  served  as 
streets.  In  appearance  the  cit)'  was  that  of  a  numerous  but  im- 
poverished population,  showing  little  evidence  of  the  vitality,  the 
artistic  taste,  or  the  versatile  resourcefulness,  which  were  soon  to 
place  Athens  in  the  forefront  of  Hellenic  politics  and  civilization. 

The  building  and  fortification  of  Peiraeus,  478.  No  sooner  had 
the  Athenians  resumed  their  daily  life  in  their  new-built  homes  than 
Themistocles  persuaded  them  to  undertake  a  still  greater  work  at 
Peiraeus.  Nothing  there,  any  more  than  at  Athens,  had  survived 
the  Persian  devastation.  First  of  all,  dockyards  had  to  be  provided 
for  the  enormous  fleet.  These,  too,  were  only  provisional.  The 
walls,  on  the  other  hand,  for  the  protection  of  the  new  city,  soon  to 
grow  up  about  the  Peiraeus  harbors,  were  to  be  massive  and  endur- 
ing. An  account  of  the  work  is  given  by  Thucydides:  "Themis- 
tocles also  persuaded  the  Athenians  to  finish  Peiraeus,  of  which  he  had 
made  a  beginning  in  his  year  of  office  as  archon.  The  situation  of 
the  place,  which  had  three  natural  havens,  was  excellent;  and  now 
that  the  Athenians  had  become  sailors,  he  thought  that  a  good  harbor 

20Thuc.  i.  89-93;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  23.  4;  Plut.   Them.  19;  Lys.  Eratosth.  63;  Diod.  xi. 
39;    Judeich,   123;   D'Ooge,  Acropolis,   66  f. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  199 

would  greatly  contribute  to  the  extension  of  their  power.  For  he 
first  dared  to  say  that  they  must  make  the  sea  their  domain,  and  he 
lost  no  time  in  laying  the  foundations  of  their  empire.  By  his  ad- 
vice, they  built  the  wall  of  such  a  width  that  two  wagons  carrying 
the  stones  could  meet  and  pass  on  the  top;  this  width  may  still  be 
traced  at  Peiraeus;  inside  there  was  no  rubble  or  mortar,  but  the 
whole  wall  was  made  up  of  large  stoties  hewn  square,  which  were 
clamped  on  the  outer  face  with  iron  and  lead.  The  height  was  not 
more  than  half  what  he  had  originally  intended:  he  had  hoped  by 
the  very  dimensions  of  the  wall  to  paralyze  the  designs  of  an  enemy, 
and  he  thought  that  a  handful  of  the  least  efficient  citizens  would 
suffice  for  its  defence,  while  the  rest  might  man  the  fleet.  His  mind 
was  turned  in  this  direction,  as  I  conceive,  from  observing  that  the 
Persians  had  met  with  fewer  obstacles  by  sea  than  by  land.  Peiraeus 
appeared  to  him  to  be  of  more  real  consequence  than  the  upper  city. 
He  was  fond  of  telling  the  Athenians  that  if  they  were  hard  pressed, 
they  should  go  down  to  Peiraeus  and  fight  the  world  at  sea."  The 
entire  circuit,  following  the  windings  of  the  shore,  was  about  seven 
miles.  The  mouths  of  the  harbors  were  narrowed  by  moles  sur- 
mounted by  towers,  and  could  be  closed  in  time  of  danger.^^ 

The  laborers;  upkeep  of  the  navy.  As  there  were  at  this  time 
few  slaves  and  fewer  aliens  in  Athens,  most  of  the  work  must  have 
been  done  by  thetes.  In  478,  the  year  in  which  we  may  place  the 
beginning  of  the  enterprise,  only  thirty  triremes  had  put  to  sea,  leav- 
ing available  tlie  greater  part  of  the  poorest  class.  For  this  labor, 
too,  we  may  assume  a  daily  compensation  of  two  obols.  Many  who 
would  have  sought  rural  employment  must  have  gathered  at  the  port 
town,  drawn  by  the  opportunity  for  work,  and  have  built  their 
cabins  there.  The  population,  therefore,  rapidly  increased.  To  at- 
tract metics,  Themistocles  carried  a  decree  which  exempted  them  from 
the  usual  sojourner's  tax.  Their  capital  and  their  skilled  hands 
were  needed  in  the  development  of  industry  and  in  the  building  of 
ships.  For  not  satisfied  with  their  already  powerful  navy,  the 
Athenians,  on  the  motion  of  Themistocles,  resolved  to  add  twenty 
new  triremes  a  year,  not  like  the  existing  ones,  but  of  a  more  recent 
and  improved  type.^-     Here,  too,  we  mark  the  devotion  of  the  citizens 

21  Thuc.   i.   93;   ii.   94.   Plut.    Thevi.   19;   Paus.    i.  2.     Width   10-26  feet  according  to  local- 
ity;   Judeich   138.     Height   unknown.     Quotation;   Thuc.    i.   93. 

22  Labor  and  wages;   Cavaignac,   L'Hist:  fiiianc.   d'Ath.  21  ff.    Two  decrees  of  Themis- 
tocles;  Diod.   xi.   43.   3;   93.   3;    cf.   Plut.    Cim.    12. 


200  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

to  the  interest  of  the  state  in  their  willingness  to  forego  the  comforts 
of  private  life  and  the  pleasures  of  festivals  and  of  art  for  the  sake 
of  increased  political  power.  Part  of  the  money  for  the  purpose  came 
from  the  mines  of  Laurium,  reopened  after  the  war,  and  a  part  was 
supplied  by  the  sale  of  booty.  Workmen  found  further  employment 
in  the  construction  of  merchant  ships  for  private  owners,  and  in  the 
various  industries  now  beginning.  In  time  Peiraeus,  thus  founded 
by  Themistocles,  became  one  of  the  most  flourishing  centres  of  in- 
dustry and  commerce  in  the  Mediterranean  world. 

Liturgies,  (i)  Choregia;  (2)  gymnasiarchia;  (3)  hestiasis. 
In  this  age,  probably  in  connection  with  the  naval  measures  above 
mentioned,  the  duty  of  commanding  a  trireme  was  placed  among  the 
liturgies  —  expensive  public  services  performed,  without  compen- 
sation, by  those  citizens  who  were  financially  qualified.  Members 
of  the  highest  property  class  were  liable  to  the  captaincy  of 
a  ship,  and  it  was  necessary,  if  required,  to  serve  in  alternate  years. 
The  state  furnished  the  hull  with  a  few  equipments,  and  expected  the 
captain  to  pay  for  the  rest  and  for  the  training  of  the  crew,  and  to 
keep  the  vessel  in  good  condition.  Among  the  other  liturgies,  estab- 
lished in  earlier  time,  were  the  duty  (1)  of  equipping  the  chorus  for 
dramatic  and  other  festivals  which  required  it,  (2)  of  paying  the 
expenses  of  torch-races  at  various  festivals,  (3)  of  feasting  one's 
tribesmen.  Each  of  these  duties  passed  in  a  cycle,  according  to 
tribes,  among  those  who  were  liable;  and  a  mark  of  the  public- 
spirited  citizen  was  to  spend  far  more  on  his  liturgy  than  the  state 
required.-^ 

Rural  economy  and  the  olive  industry.  It  was  not  only  the 
building  and  fortification  of  the  two  cities  that  demanded  the  atten- 
tion of  the  government.  The  rural  districts,  too,  had  suffered  from 
the  war.  The  Persians  had  burned  farm  houses,  as  well  as  country 
sanctuaries,  and  had  cut  down  vines  and  olive  trees.  Conquerors, 
however,  are  mild  compared  with  envious  neighbors,  and  are  dis- 
posed to  spare  a  country  which  is  to  become  their  own.  Next  to 
the  rebuilding  of  desolate  homes,  the  first  thought  of  Themistocles  on 
the  morrow  of  the  battle  of  Salamis  had  been  for  the  restoration  of 
agriculture.  Though  no  record  has  been  left,  we  may  be  sure  that 
on  his  initiative  the  council  of  the  Areopagus  bent  its  energies  to 

23  Gilbert,  Const.  Antiq.  179  f . ;  Busolt,  Griech.  Gesch.  ii.  270-72;  iii.  53.  Trierarchy, 
captaincy  of  a  trireme.  Naturally  citizens  only  were  liable  to  the  trierarchy,  whereas  met- 
ics  also  were  liable  to  other  liturgies.     H.  Civ.  no.   129;   Demosth.   Lept.   19-23- 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  201 

the  restoration  of  farm  buildings,  vineyards,  and  olive  groves.  We 
know  that  this  body  enforced  minute  regulations  for  the  preservation 
of  olive  trees  and  even  of  stumps,  which  readily  produce  fruit-bearing 
shoots.  The  statement  of  Herodotus  that  Attica  alone  produced  the 
olive  is  doubtless  exaggerated,  yet  we  may  well  believe  that  she 
alone  exported  oil  in  considerable  quantities,  and  that  she  attempted 
a  monopoly  of  the  trade.  An  exhaustless  market  was  Italy,  where 
few  olives  were  grown  till  long  after  the  period  now  under  consid- 
eration.    The  exportation  was  but  slightly  interrupted  by  the  war.^* 

Im,ports.  In  exchange  Athens  imported  grain,  pork,  Sicilian 
cheese,  other  food  products  of  various  kinds,  Etruscan  metal  work,  and 
ornamental  slippers.  From  Carthage  came  tapestries  and  gaily 
wrought  cushions.  Here,  too,  we  discover  the  hand  of  Themistocles, 
busily  fostering  commerce  and  political  relations  with  the  Hellenic 
West.  With  that  end  in  view,  he  cultivated  the  friendship  of  Acar- 
nania  and  Corcyra,  which  lay  in  the  trade  route  to  Italy.  Under  his 
policy  Athens  took  the  place  once  occupied  by  Chalcis  and  Eretria  in 
this  field  of  commerce,  and  her  coins  rapidly  crowded  out  competi- 
tors. Alliances  with  Hellenic  cities  of  the  West  were  being  formed. 
In  his  devotion  to  that  part  of  Hellas  he  named  one  daughter  Sybaris, 
and  another  Italia.  Trade  was  by  no  means  limited  to  the  West. 
Athens  had  to  import  two  thirds  of  her  grain  supply.  It  came  from 
her  allies,  from  Italy,  Sicily,  Egypt,  and  Pontus,  whereas  great  quan- 
tities of  vegetables  were  supplied  by  Megara  and  Boeotia.  These 
imports  are  mentioned  as  items  of  the  wide  and  varied  commerce 
fostered  by  the  policy  of  Themistocles.-^ 

Hellenic  statesmanship  of  Themistocles.  In  every  direction  we 
come  upon  evidence  of  his  broad,  far-seeing  statesmanship.  His  high 
place  in  Hellenic  politics  and  his  reputation  for  wisdom  and  integ- 
rity are  indicated  by  the  fact  that  in  these  times  Corinth  and  Corcyra 
chose  him  to  arbitrate  a  dispute  between  them.  The  case  was  de- 
cided in  favor  of  the  latter.  "  At  the  next  Olympic  games,"  says 
Plutarch,  "  when  Themistocles  entered  the  stadium,  the  spectators 
took  no  further  notice  of  all  those  who  were  contesting  for  the  prizes, 
but  spent  the  whole  day  in  looking  at  him,  pointing  him  out  to 
strangers,  and  applauding  him  by  clapping  their  hands  and  other 

24Hdt.   V.  82;   viii.   109;   Thuc.   ii.   16;   Paus.   x.  35.   2;   Cicero,   Rep.   in.  9.    15;   Pais.   Anc. 

25 'p]ut.   Them.   17;   .\then.   i.  49  f.   Busolt,   Griech.  Gesch.   iii.   520;   Meyer,   Gescli.   d.   Alt. 
iii.  545. 


202  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

expressions  of  joy;  so  that  he  himself,  much  gratified,  admitted  to  his 
friends  that  he  then  reaped  the  fruit  of  all  his  labors  for  the 
Greeks."  ^^ 

V/ Increasing  control  of  Athens  over  her  allies.  It  was  clear  not 
only  to  Themistocles  but  to  other  statesmen  that  the  political  and 
economic  greatness  of  their  city  was  to  rest  chiefly  upon  their  com- 
mand of  the  Delian  confederacy.  They  were  determined,  therefore, 
to  maintain  it  at  all  cost  and  to  strengthen  their  control  over  it.  In 
this  field  Aristeides  and  Cimon  were  especially  active.  There  were  in 
the  confederacy,  after  the  battle  of  Eurymedon,  more  than  two  hun- 
dred city-states,  all  nominally  equal  and  entitled  to  representation  in 
the  congress.  But  they  varied  immensely  in  importance,  from  insig- 
nificant towns,  occupying  a  few  square  miles  of  territory,  to  larger 
states  such  as  Chios  and  Naxos,  thence  to  the  vastly  greater 
power  of  Athens.  They  spoke  various  dialects  and  were  widely  scat- 
tered over  islands  and  coasts.  Under  these  circumstances  and  with 
their  slight  experience  in  federal  government,  actual  equality  was 
impossible.  Most  of  the  allies,  too,  were  disinclined  to  military  ser- 
•  vice;  and  some  who  had  originally  furnished  ships  persuaded  the 
Athenians  to  accept  money  contributions  instead.  Depriving  them- 
selves thus  of  the  means  cff  self-defense,  they  readily  fell  into  the  con- 
dition of  subjects.  From  time  to  time  they  neglected  to  render  the 
tribute,  which  in  such  cases  had  to  be  collected  by  force.  "  For  the 
Athenians  were  exacting  and  oppressive,  using  coercive  measures 
toward  men  who  were  neither  willing  nor  accustomed  to  work  hard." 
When  a  state  revolted,  lacking  both  the  training  and  the  equipment 
for  war,  it  was  easily  subdued.^^ 

Revolt  of  Naxos,  469.  More  formidable  was  the  revolt  of  a 
state  which  continued  to  supply  a  naval  force.  The  first  to  take  this 
step  was  Naxos.  We  may  assume  that  the  motives  were  of  a  general 
nature,  especially  the  Greek  love  of  absolute  independence  for  the  city- 
state  and  the  delusion  that,  as  the  Persians  had  been  pushed  back 
from  the  Aegean  region,  the  Confederacy  had  fulfilled  its  mission  and 
might  profitably  be  dissolved.  Athens,  however,  promptly  crushed 
the  revolt  by  force,  dismantled  the  walls  of  the  rebellious  city,  con- 
fiscated her  fleet,  imposed  an  annual  tribute,  and  deprived  her  of  free- 
dom.    It  was  the  duty  of  Athens,  as  the  executive,  to  maintain  the 

26  Plut.   Them.   17  (doubtless  from  a  contemporary  source).     The  arbitration;   op.   cit.   24. 

27  Thuc.   i.   99  (cf.   i.    19);   Plut.   Arist.   25;   Cini.   11. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  203 

integrity  of  the  league  and  to  compel  every  state  to  bear  its  obligation. 
She  violated  her  oath,  however,  in  depriving  an  ally  of  freedom.  In 
losing  its  independence  Naxos  was  compelled  to  renounce  forever 
all  diplomatic  relations  with  other  states  and  to  accept  a  constitution 
conformable  to  Athenian  wishes.  The  treatment  of  this  ally  served  as 
a  precedent  for  future  cases  of  rebellion.-^ 

Revolt  of  Thasos,  465-3.  A  few  years  afterward  Thasos  revolted. 
This  ishuid  had  long  possessed  mines  on  the  opposite  coast  of  Thrace, 
from  which  it  drew  a  considerable  income.  The  Athenians  had  lately 
intruded  within  its  district,  and  a  dispute  thus  arising  led  to  the 
rebellion.  Ci-mon  besieged  the  island,  and  after  two  years  the 
Thasians  gave  up  their  claim  to  the  mines  on  the  mainland,  surren- 
dered their  fleet,  dismantled  their  walls,  and  accepted  the  tribute  im- 
posed by  the  Athenians.  The  crushing  of  these  two  rebellions  proved 
the  hopelessness  of  resistance  to  Athens,  and  the  determination  of  the 
latter  to  maintain  her  control  by  force.  There  was  injustice  in  this 
policy  of  coercion,  yet  the  employment  of  some  degree  of  violence 
was  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  the  league.  Furthermore  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  welding  of  the  maritime  confederacy  into 
an  empire  under  the  rule  of  Athens,  was  in  itself  advantageous  to 
the  population  and  to  Hellas  in  general. ^^ 

Treaties  with  individual  states.  From  the  beginning  Athens 
had  taken  measures  to  bind  the  individual  states  close  to  herself  by 
treaties  which  regulated  judicial  cases  arising  from  their  commercial 
relations.  In  these  agreements  the  leading  city  aimed  to  bring  as 
many  of  the  judicial  cases  as  possible  before  her  own  courts;  and  this 
effort  was  seconded  by  the  allies  themselves,  who  recognized  the  su- 
periority of  Athenian  law.  In  fact,  in  a  group  of  states,  like  those  of 
the  Confederacy,  closely  united  in  commerce,  it  was  a  great  advantage 
that  a  uniform  system  of  law  be  substituted  for  the  endless  variety  of 
local  usage.  Not  only  rebellious  states  accepted  constitutions  at  the 
dictation  of  Athens;  one  by  one  she  persuaded  or  forced  most  of  the 
others  to  make  new  treaties  with  her,  which  provided  for  democratic 
governments  and  required  them  to  send  their  more  important  criminal 
cases  for  trial.  Naturally,  too,  all  offenses  against  Athens  were 
brought  before  her  courts.  As  regards  mercantile  suits,  however,  the 
principle   seems   generally   to  have  prevailed   that   the   case   should 

28  Thuc.  i.  9S;   Aristoph.   Wasps,  355. 

29Thuc.  i.  100  f. ;  Plut.  Cini.  14;  Diod.  xi.  70.     Further  on  the  Athenian  policy;  p.  240. 


204  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

be  heard  in  the  state  where  the  contract  was  made.  There  was 
little  uniformity  in  these  treaties,  however,  but  the  general  tendency 
^  was  less  federative  than  imperial. ^° 

Progress  of  democracy,  479-61.  While  Athens  was  thus  enter- 
ing upon  an  imperial  policy,  she  was  engaged  in  making  her  own 
government  more  democratic.  The  patriotic  and  efficient  conduct  of 
the  Areopagites  in  supervising  the  exodus  of  Xerxes'  invasion  had 
given  them  an  ascendancy  in  public  life  which  they  had  scarcely  known 
since  the  time  of  Solon;  but  their  authority  was  rapidly  undermined 
by  the  admission  each  year  of  the  nine  ex-archons  appointed  by  lot 
(since  487-6),  and  hence  of  mediocre  talent,  and  even  more  by  the 
general  advance  of  democracy.  In  the  opinion  of  Aristotle,  Aristeides 
was  chiefly  responsible  for  this  development.  "  Afterward  as  the 
citizens  of  the  (Athenian)  state  had  acquired  confidence,  and  a  great 
quantity  of  money  had  accumulated,  he  advised  them  to  lay  hold  on 
the  leadership  and  to  come  in  from  the  country  and  live  in  the  city, 
assuring  them  that  there  would  be  a  livelihood  for  all, —  some  serving 
in  the  army,  others  in  garrisons,  others  attending  to  administrative 
work, —  and  that  thus  they  would  secure  the  leadership."  ^^ 

Parallel  growth  of  democracy  and  imperialism.  This  passage 
is  evidence  that  Aristeides  introduced  pay  for  military  service  and  to 
some  extent  for  official  duty,  thus  making  it  possible  for  any  Athenian, 
however  poor,  to  take  part  in  public  affairs.  He  more  than  any 
other,  therefore,  was  the  founder  of  the  radical  democracy.  The 
double  object  was  to  furnish  subsistence  to  the  populace  and  to  gain 
a  more  thorough  control  of  the  alliance.  Imperialism  and  democracy 
were  in  fact  correlative,  in  that  the  revenue  from  the  empire  alone 
made  possible  the  participation  of  the  Athenian  masses  in  public 
affairs,  and  on  the  other  hand  this  participation  was  necessary  for 
the  policing  and  administration  of  the  empire.  "  When  circumstances 
forced  the  Athenians  to  govern  with  a  stronger  hand,  he  bade  them  act 
as  they  pleased,  for  he  would  take  upon  himself  any  guilt  of  perjury 
they  might  incur."  ^^ 

The  two  parties.     A  clash  between  democrats  and  conserva- 

30  Commercial  treaty  with  Phaselis;  TJ.  Civ.  no.  69.  Cases  at  law;  Old  Oligarch,  Const. 
Ath.  1.  16;  Thuc.  i.  77  (meaning  uncertain);  IG.  I.  suppl.  p.  6,  22  a;  i.  28,  29  and  suppl. 
p.    12. 

■31//.  Civ.  no.  59  (Arist.).  Democratic  progress;  Ari.st.  Const.  Ath.  22  f. ;  Polit.  v.  4.  8, 
1304  a;  Plut.  Them.  10.  Plutarch's  notion  that  Aristeides  was  a  conservative  is  disproved 
even  by  the  facts  given  by  himself;  cf.  Arist.  22.  In  this  passage  Plutarch  misinterprets 
Aristeides'  policy  of  engaging  the  citizens  in  public  service.   Archons  taken  by  lot;   p.   175. 

32  Plut.   Arist.  24. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  205 

tives.  While  there  wiis  among  the  leading  statesmen  of  Athens  no 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  treatment  of  the  confederacy,  a  sharp 
line  of  cleavage  was  drawn  through  the  group  in  relation  to  home 
politics.  Those  who  favored  the  popularization  of  the  constitution 
were  led  by  Aristeides,  the  Conservatives  by  Cimon.  Inevitably  the 
latter  party  clung  close  to  the  Peloy)onnesian  league,  and  looked  to 
Sparta  as  an  example  and  a  moral  support,  whereas  the  democrats, 
understanding  the  incompatibility  of  the  two  states,  were  ready  to 
break  with  the  Peloponnesian  league.  Their  hands  were  strength- 
ened by  the  fact  that  Sparta  gave  secret  encouragement  to  rebellion 
within  the  Confederacy,  and  stood  forth  as  the  champion  of  particu- 
larism —  of  the  complete  independence  and  isolation  of  the  city- 
states  —  in  opposition  to  the  Athenian  efforts  at  political  aggregation. 
The  boldness  of  Themistocles  in  opposing  Spartan  interests  at  every 
turn,  added  to  envy  of  a  greatness  that  eclipsed  all  contemporary  poli- 
ticians, stirred  against  him  a  formidable  combination  headed  by 
Cimon,  which  forced  his  ostracism  (about  472)."" 

Political  ferment  in  Peloponnese.  The  exiled  statesman  retired 
to  Argos,  whence  he  travelled  through  Peloponnese,  sowing  every- 
where the  seeds  of  democracy  and  of  opposition  to  Sparta.  Evidently 
he  was  bent  on  continuing  even  in  exile  his  task  of  weakening  Lace- 
daemon  in  order  to  make  his  own  city  supreme  in  Hellas.  Shortly 
before  his  ostracism  the  Arcadians,  supported  by  Argos,  had  revolted 
against  Sparta,  bringing  the  very  existence  of  the  Peloponnesian 
league  into  hazard.  They  were  defeated  and  the  Lacedaemonian  su- 
premacy was  restored;  but  the  general  ill-will  must  have  encouraged 
Themistocles  to  believe  that  it  was  still  practicable  to  undermine  the 
power  of  Sparta.  In  this  frame  of  mind  he  received  news  of  the 
plottings  of  Pausanias,  who  hoped  to  rise  to  supreme  power  through  the 
emancipation  of  the  helots.  Themistocles  may  have  encouraged  this 
ambition,  but  the  accusation  that  the  great  statesman  ever  conspired  in 
thought  or  act  against  Athens  or  Hellas  is  belied  by  his  entire  career.^* 

Need  of  a  revolution  in  Lacedaemon.  The  revolution  attempted 
by  the  Spartan  regent  was  precisely  what  his  country  needed  to  bring 
her  abreast  of  the  general  political  and  social  progress  of  Hellas;  it 

sa  There  is  no  good  evidence  that  Themistocles  favored  the  democratization  --f  the  con- 
stitution- his  interest  was  in  Hellenic  and  world  politics.  In  his  opposition  to  Themistocles 
C'mon  was  supported  by  Lacedaemon;  Plut.  Tlioii.  21.  Alone  of  the  prominent  politicians 
Aristeides  held  aloof  from  the  attack;  Plut.  Arist.  25.  Sparta  had  promised  aid  to  Thasos; 
Thuc.   i.   101.  ,    ,„ 

.'.  iThuc.  i.   132-5;  Plut.   Them.  23;  Nepos,   Thein.  8;  of.  Hdt.  v.  32. 


206  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

would  have  maintained  and  even  vastly  increased  her  military 
strength.  But  though  a  general  of  marked  ability,  Pausanias  was 
wholly  lacking  in  statesmanship.  He  disgraced  his  cause,  too,  by 
intriguing  to  bring  Hellas  into  slavery  to  the  Persian  king.  Fearing 
arrest,  he  fled  to  a  shrine  of  Athena,  and  was  there  walled  in  by 
his  countrj'men,  and  starved  to  death.  By  this  violation  of  the  right 
of  sanctuary  the  Spartans  brought  upon  themselves  a  religious  curse. ^^ 

The  end  of  Themistocles.  In  his  fall  Pausanias  dragged  The- 
mistocles  to  ruin.  The  correspondence  of  the  deceased  regent  proved 
that  the  Athenian  statesman  had  knowledge  of  his  schemes;  and  this 
circumstance  was  made  a  ground  for  prosecution,  brought  by  the 
Athenian  Alcmeonidae.  Despairing  of  justice,  Themistocles  avoided 
arrest  by  flight.  He  tried  one  place  of  refuge  after  another;  but 
finding  no  spot  in  Hellas  to  shelter  him,  he  finally  passed  over  to 
the  Persian  king.  Whatever  may  have  been  his  promise  in  exchange 
for  protection,  we  know  that  he  never  raised  his  hand  against  his 
country.  Thus  passed  from  the  stage  of  history  the  greatest  of  the 
Greeks  in  obscurity  and  disgrace.^*' 

The  genius  of  Themistocles.  No  better  estimate  of  his  genius 
could  be  written  than  that  given  by  Thucydides:  "Themistocles 
was  a  man  whose  natural  force  was  unmistakable;  this  was  the 
quality  for  which  he  was  distinguished  above  all  other  men ;  from  his 
own  native  acuteness,  and  without  any  study  either  before  or  at  the 
time,  he  was  the  ablest  judge  of  the  course  to  be  pursued  in  a  sudden 
emergency,  and  could  best  divine  what  was  likely  to  happen,  in  the 
remotest  future.  Whatever  he  had  in  hand  he  had  the  power  of 
explaining  to  others,  and  even  where  he  had  no  experience  he  was 
quite  competent  to  form  a  sufficient  judgment;  no  one  could  foresee 
with  equal  clearness  the  good  or  evil  intent  hidden  in  the  future.  In 
a  word,  Themistocles,  by  natural  power  of  mind  and  with  the  least 
preparation,  was  of  all  men  the  best  able  to  extemporize  the  right 
thing  to  be  done."  ^"  To  him  in  a  large  measure  were  due  the  libera- 
tion of  Hellas  and  the  greatness  of  his  own  city. 

Democratic  policy  of  Ephialtes  and  Pericles,  from  about  472. 
Aristeides  could  not  long  have  survived  tlie  ostracism  of  Themistocles, 
but  of  his  end  we  have  no  clear  knowledge.     Their  place  was  taken 

35Hdt.   V.   32;   Thuc.   i.    128-35;   Diod.   xi.   54   (Ephorus);    Plut.    Them.   23;   Mai.   Hdt.   5; 
Nepos.  Patis.  2-S;   Paus.  iii.   17.  7-9. 

36  Thuc.  i.  135-8;  Plut.  Them.  24  ff.    Governor  of  Magnesia;  Head,  Hist.  Num.  581. 

37  Thuc.   i.   138. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  207 

by  Ephialtes,  a  clear-sighted,  incorruptible  statesman,  supported  by 
a  son  of  Xanthippus  —  Pericles,  who  at  this  time  was  entering;  upon 
his  public  career.  Ephialtes  inherited  from  Aristeides  the  policy  of 
democratizing  the  constitution,  and  from  Themistocles  the  conviction 
that  the  duty  of  Athens  to  herself  was  to  cut  loose  from  Sparta  in 
order  unhampered  to  make  the  most  of  her  opportunity  in  world  poli- 
tics. 

Cimon's  opposition.  In  the  intervals  between  his  frequent  cam- 
paigns Cimon  was  able  by  his  personal  influence  to  hold  these  tend- 
encies in  check.  The  sailors  enthusiastically  supported  the  popular 
admiral  who  had  often  led  them  to  victory.  The  extensive  public 
improvements,  which  he  conducted,  and  which  will  be  described  in 
the  following  chapter,  secured  him  the  vote  of  a  multitude  of  work- 
men, while  his  liberality  won  a  host  of  clients.  "  With  an  estate  like 
that  of  a  tyrant,  he  not  only  performed  his  public  services  brilliantly, 
but  supported  many  of  his  fellow-demesmen.  It  was  permitted  any 
who  wished  of  the  Laciadae  to  come  daily  to  his  house  and  receive 
moderate  provisions.  Furthemiore  he  left  all  his  fields  fenceless 
that  any  one  who  pleased  might  help  himself  to  the  fruit."  ^^  Evi- 
dently the  Areopagites,  too,  supported  him  in  his  conservative,  philo- 
Laconian  policy.  By  such  means  he  was  able  whenever  present  at 
Athens,  to  control  an  overwhelming  majority  in  the  assembly. 
v\ Revolt  of  the  helots  (a  Messenian  war).  It  was  on  one  of  these 
occasions,  shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Thasian  campaign,  that  a  crisis 
came  in  the  relations  between  Athens  and  Lacedaemon.  Sparta  had 
been  afflicted  by  a  terrible  earthquake,  which,  left  but  five  houses 
standing  and  destroyed  many  of  her  people.  It  was  still  more  ominous 
for  the  state  that  the  helots,  who  had  looked  to  Pausanias  to  deliver 
them  from  bondage,  and  now  saw  in  the  earthquake  the  vengeance 
of  heaven  for  the  Spartan  sacrilege  committed  in  connection  with  his 
death,  revolted,  and  were  joined  by  two  perioecic  towns.  As  the 
majority  of  helots  were  Messenians,  the  rebellion  is  known  as  a 
Messenian  war.  The  insurgents  seized  Mount  Ithome;  and  as  the 
Lacedaemonians  proved  unable  to  reduce  the  place  by  assault  or 
siege,  they  asked  aid  of  their  allies,  including  the  Athenians.  When 
the  Lacedaemonian  ambassador  reached  Athens  with  the  request,  a 
vehement  debate  ensued  between  Cimon  and  Ephialtes  in  the  assem- 
bly, as  to  whether  aid  should  be  given  in  accordance  with  the  exist- 

38  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  27;  Plut.  Cim.  10.    Laciadae,  Cimon's  deme. 


208  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ing  treaty.  The  latter  strenuously  urged  his  fellow  citizens  "  to  take 
advantage  of  their  rival's  misfortune  and  to  let  the  arrogance  of 
Sparta  be  crushed  and  trodden  in  the  dust,"  whereas  Cimon  as  vigor- 
ously favored  the  motion  to  send  help,  "  that  Greece  might  not  be 
lame  of  one  foot  or  Athens  draw  her  load  without  her  yoke-mate."  ^^ 
Cimon  won,  and  marched  to  the  relief  of  Sparta  with  a  considerable 
force  of  heavy  infantry.*"  The  departure  of  these  conservatives  with 
their  leaders  was  doubtless  welcome  to  the  reformers,  who  forthwith 
concentrated  their  attack  upon  that  stronghold  of  conservatism  the 
council  of  the  Areopagus.  Ephialtes  and  his  associates  *^  proposed 
and  carried  a  succession  of  laws  which  deprived  that  body  of  all 
political  functions,  transferring  them  to  the  council  of  Five  Hundred, 
the  courts,  and  the  assembly. 

Quarrel  between  Athens  and  Lacedaemon,  462.  Meanwhile 
"the  expedition  of  the  Athenians  (to  Ithome)  led  to  their  first  open 
quarrel  with  the  Lacedaemonians.  For  the  latter,  not  succeeding  in 
storming  the  place,  took  alarm  at  the  bold  and  original  spirit  of  the 
Athenians.  They  reflected  that  the  men  of  Athens  were  aliens  in  race 
and  fearing  that  if  they  were  allowed  to  remain,  they  might  be 
tempted  by  the  helots  to  change  sides,  they  dismissed  them,  while 
retaining  the  other  allies.  Concealing  their  mistrust,  however,  they 
only  explained  that  they  no  longer  had  need  of  their  services."  *-  The 
Athenians  returned  home  in  great  rage  at  this  insult.  Cimon  at  once 
attempted  to  undo  the  political  reform  accomplished  during  his  ab- 
sence, but  met  only  with  taunts  of  over-fondness  for  Sparta  and  for 
looseness  in  his  private  life.  As  Ephialtes  had  been  assassinated  by 
political  enemies,  the  contest  was  now  between  Cimon  and  Pericles. 
Early  in  461  recourse  was  had  to  a  vote  of  ostracism,  which  resulted  in 
the  banishment  of  Cimon.*^ 

Sicily  and  Italy.     480-461 

Gelon  and  Theron.  Meanwhile  the  Greeks  of  Sicily  and  southern 
Italy  were  experiencing  political  and  social  changes  roughly  parallel 
to  the  development  of  older  Hellas.  The  great  success  of  Gelon  in 
dispelling  the  Carthaginian  peril  added  to  the  prestige  and  the  power 

39  H.  Civ.   no.  85  (Critias  and  Ion  respectively). 

40  Thuc.  i.   102.     With  4000  heavy  infantry;   Aristoph.  Lysistrate,  1143. 

41  Besides  Pericles  a  certain  Archestratus  is  mentioned;   Arist.   Const.  Atli.  35. 

42  Thuc.    i.    102. 

43  Plut.   Cini.   15,   17;   Arist.   Const.   Ath.   25   (the  anecdote  connecting  Themistocles  with 
this  event  is  out  of  place). 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  20^ 

of  his  city.  All  the  Greeks  of  Sicily  now  acknowledged  his  war  lead- 
ership with  the  exception  of  Acragas  and  her  dependencies,  whose 
ruler  Theron  remained  his  close  friend  and  ally.  Thus  it  was  that 
under  the  hegemony  of  Syracuse  there  grew  up  a  Sicilian  union  com- 
parable with  the  Hellenic  league  under  Lacedaemonian  supremacy.^* 
Through  respect  for  its  military  power  the  Carthaginians  abstained 
from  molesting  the  Western  Greeks  for  a  period  of  seventy  years 
(480-409).  Notwithstanding  internal  strife  and  wars  with  other 
Greeks  and  with  the  natives  of  the  interior,  vast  advances  were  made 
during  this  era  in  material  prosperity  and  in  civilization. 

Growth  of  Syracuse.  In  far  earlier  times  the  city  of  Syracuse 
had  outgrown  the  island  of  Ortygia  and  had  extended  over  the  neigh- 
ooring  height  of  Achradina.  Gelon  greatly  increased  its  population 
by  bringing  to  it  the  wealthier  inhabitants  of  neighboring  towns, 
settling  most  of  them  in  Achradina.  This  quarter  he  surrounded 
with  strong  walls,  considerable  stretches  of  which  may  still  be  traced. 
But  the  population  rapidly  outgrew  the  enclosed  space,  and  flourishing 
suburbs  sprang  up  to  tlie  west  of  Achradina.  Gelon  connected  the 
island  with  the  mainland  by  a  mole,  and  established  arsenals  and 
barracks  for  the  mercenaries  who  upheld  his  power.  Not  least  among 
his  public  works  is  an  aqueduct  still  in  use,  which  supplied  the  city 
with  excellent  water.'*^  There  yet  stands  in  good  condition  in  Ortygia 
a  temple  of  Athena,  now  used  as  a  Christian  Church.  It  was  prob- 
ably built  before  Gelon.  A  new  era  in  architecture,  however,  began 
with  the  battle  of  Himera.  The  sale  of  the  vast  booty  furnished 
the  means,  and  the  victory  the  inspiration,  for  the  erection  of  temples 
and  other  public  works,  of  which  we  have  but  slight  remains. 

The  tyranny  becomes  a  monarchy.  Gelon  had  shown  himself 
utterly  unscrupulous  in  seizing  the  tyranny  and  in  maintaining  his 
power.  Moreover  he  had  treated  the  poorer  class  of  conquered  towns 
with  rare  harshness.  The  battle  of  Himera,  however,  turned  grum- 
blings to  gratitude,  and  exalted  the  tyrant  to  a  champion  of  Hellas. 
Of  this  change  in  public  opinion  Gelon  availed  himself  for  legitima- 
tizing his  rule.  Appearing  in  civilian  dress  in  the  midst  of  an  armed 
assembly  of  citizens,  he  offered  to  render  an  account  of  his  adminis- 
tration. Astonished  at  this  confidence  in  them  and  admiring  him 
for  the  democratic  act,  the  people  unanimously  hailed  him  as  their 

44  Diod.  xi.  25  f. 

45  Cf.  Thuc.  vi.  100. 


210  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

kino;,  their  benefactor,  and  the  deliverer  of  their  country.  There- 
after he  and  his  successors  in  the  dynasty  were  spoken  of  as  kings.** 
An  era  of  peace  and  of  unwonted  prosperity  now  set  in.  Since 
Gelon's  temper  had  grown  as  mild  as  his  works  were  magnificent, 
the  people  idolized  him  while  living;  and  when  he  died  (478),  they 
erected  over  him  a  stately  tomb,  paying  him  heroic  honors  as  the 
founder  of  their  city. 

Growth  of  Acragas.  Meanwhile  Theron  in  like  manner  was 
making  his  city,  Acragas,  second  only  to  Syracuse  in  population, 
strength,  and  magnificence.  In  both  cities  the  public  works  were 
erected  mostly  by  slave  labor.  As  spoils  of  the  victory  at  Himera, 
"  the  men  of  Acragas  got  for  their  share  a  great  number  of  captives, 
with  which  they  enriched  their  city  and  the  surrounding  country.  So 
great  was  the  multitude  of  their  prisoners,  that  many  a  citizen  ac- 
quired no  less  than  five  hundred  slaves.  .  .  .  Many,  too,  were  re- 
tained by  the  state  and  employed  in  cutting  stone  for  the  temples 
of  the  gods  and  in  constructing  aqueducts  for  the  water  supply."*^ 
Theron  strongly  fortified  the  city.  Along  the  southern  wall  he  began 
building  a  chain  of  temples,  finished  after  his  death.  Among  the 
ruins  still  extensive  the  best  preserved  is  the  misnamed  temple  of 
Concordia,  a  graceful  little  shrine  that  has  not  in  fact  revealed  the 
name  of  its  deity.  The  buildings  of  both  cities  were  of  limestone, 
whose  exposed  surfaces  were  stuccoed  and  painted.  Necessarily  they 
wanted  the  refined  beauty  of  marble,  and  they  fell  short  of  the  Attic 
standard  of  taste,  yet  the  two  great  Sicilian  cities  had  attractions  of 
their  own,  a  richness  of  material  life,  and  a  splendor  of  power  that 
inspired  the  genius  of  Pindar.  In  beauty  Acragas  was  "  the  eye  of 
Sicily,"  "  lover  of  splendor,  most  charming  among  the  cities  of  men, 
haunt  of  Persephone;  "  Syracuse  was  the  "precinct  of  warrior  Ares, 
of  iron-armed  men  and  steeds  the  nursing-place  divine."  *^ 

Hieron,  478-67;  Italy.  Gel  on  was  succeeded  by  his  brother 
Hieron,  in  whose  reign  Sicily  came  into  closer  relations  with  Italy. 
Undismayed  by  the  overthrow  of  their  allies,  the  Etruscans  were  now 
bent  upon  the  complete  subjugation  of  Campania.  When  Cumae 
found  herself  threatened  by  them  on  land  and  sea,  she  called  on 
Hieron  for  aid.     His  fleet  came,  and  inflicted  a  mortal  blow  on  the 

46  Diod.   xi.   26.    So  Pindar  represents  them,   and  so  they  are  styled  by  ths  historians; 
cf.  Diod.   xi.  38.  2. 

47  Diod.  xi.   25. 

48  Find.  Ol.  ii.   10  f. ;  Pyth.  ii.   1  ff. ;  xii.   1  ff. 


THE  AGE  OF  WAR  HEROES  211 

Etruscan  nuval  power  (474).  With  good  hoi)e  could  Pindar  now 
pray  the  son  of  Cronos  to  "  grant  that  the  Phoenician  and  the  Tuscan 
war-cry  bo  hushed  at  home,  since  they  have  beheld  the  calamity  of 
their  ships  that  befell  them  before  Cumae,  even  how  they  were  smitten 
by  the  captain  of  the  Syracusans,  who  from  their  swift  ships  hurled 
their  youth  into  the  sea,  to  deliver  Hellas  from  the  bondage  of  the 
oppressor."  *'■*  Henceforth  the  Etruscan  power,  which  had  menaced  . 
all  Italy,  declined.  The  Latins  and  especially  Rome,  their  chief 
city,  were  friendly  toward  the  Hellenes,  and  were  adopting  from  them 
many  elements  of  culture.  With  the  Sabellian  peoples,  too,  of  the 
interior  the  Greeks  were  long  at  peace;  and  these  conditions  made 
possible  the  accumulation  of  wealth  in  the  Hellenic  states,  to  the 
advantage  of  the  useful  and  fine  arts,  philosophy,  and  the  comforts 
and  pleasures  of  life.  Some  of  the  states,  as  Cumae  and  Rhegium,^° 
were  under  tyrannies  like  those  of  Sicily.  Locri  and  Tarentum  were 
aristocratic,  whereas  most  of  the  Achaean  cities  were  ruled  by  Pytha- 
gorean fraternities. 

From  tyranny  to  republic.  The  spirit  of  liberty  and  equality, 
which  was  working  its  spell  upon  the  minds  of  older  Hellas,  lived, 
too,  among  tlie  western  Greeks.  The  ability  and  beneficence  of  the 
great  rulers  of  Acragas  and  Syracuse  guaranteed  the  survival  of 
monarchy  in  Sicily  during  their  lives.  In  fact  this  form  of  govern- 
ment received  a  new  lustre  from  Hieron's  court,  which  had  become  the 
most  splendid  centre  of  culture  in  Hellas,  the  gathering  place  of  her 
most  gifted  poets,  philosophers,  and  artists.  It  is  clear,  however,  that 
both  he  and  Theron  had  their  troubles  with  discontented  subjects. 
After  their  deaths  their  successors,  men  of  base  character  and  mean 
ability,  were  swept  from  their  thrones  by  the  rising  tide  of  liberty. 
Before  the  end  of  466  all  the  Sicilian  state'*  were  free  and  had  adopted 
governments  more  or  less  democratic.  Under  the  new  regime  the 
cities  tended  to  political  isolation,  yet  acknowledged  the  moral  lead- 
ership of  Syracuse.  About  the  same  time  a  democratic  wave  swept 
over  Italy,  converting  tyrannies  and  aristocracies  into  more  popular 
forms  of  government.^^  The  Pythagoreans,  however,  maintained 
themselves  for  some  years  longer. 

49  Pind.  Pyth.  71  ff.  Cf.  Diod.  xi.  51.  Hieron's  dedication  of  Etruscan  helmet  at  Olym- 
pia;    Hicks   and   Hill,    no.    22. 

50  Dion.  Hal.  vii.  5  ff . ;  Diod.  xi,  76.  5.  ..„,..„    ,,     ,,,,  u 

51  Theron  died,  472;  Hieron,  466.  Overthrow  of  tyranny.  Anst.  Polit.  v.  10.  Jl,  Hid  b; 
12.  5,  1,M5  b;  Diod.  xi.  53,  66-8,  72.  Pythagoreans;  FHG.  II.  p.  274.  11;  Dicaearchus,  ofi. 
cit.  p.  245.  31;  Polyb.   ii.  39;   Justin  xx.  4. 


212  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Troubles  of  the  republics,  463-1-  In  the  new  republics  great 
confusion  arose  over  the  respective  rights  of  the  old  citizens  and  those 
admitted  by  the  tyrants.  The  trouble  was  complicated  by  the  fact 
that  the  tyrants  had  arbitrarily  transferred  much  valuable  real  estate 
from  the  former  to  the  latter  class.  Civil  war  raged  over  all  Sicily 
between  these  conflicting  parties.  The  old  citizens  triumphed,  and 
in  461  a  general  Sicilian  congress,  meeting  at  Syracuse,  settled  the 
agrarian  controversy.  The  old  citizens  were  restored  to  their  proper- 
ties, and  the  others  were  compensated  by  lands  to  be  granted  them  as 
colonists  in  the  interior  of  the  island.  The  republics  were  now 
firmly  established;  ^-  and  though  not  wholly  free  from  internal  con- 
flicts, Sicily  entered  upon  a  new  and  greater  prosperity. 

52  Diod.  xi.  72  f . ;  76;  Ox.  Pap.  iv.  no.  665.  Moderate  democracy  at  Syracuse;  Arist. 
Polit.  V.  4.  9,  1304  a. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  ch.  viii;  Holm,  II,  chs.  vii-ix;  Curtius,  III,  ch.  ii;  Grote,  V,  chs.  xliv- 
xlv;  Meyer,  III,  459-570;  Beloch  II,  1,  chs.  iii,  iv;  Busolt,  III,  1-295;  Free- 
man. History  of  Sicily,  I,  chs,  vi,  vii,  §1;  Cavaignac,  Histoire  de  I'antiquite,  II, 
1-54. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
AGE  OF  THE  WAR  HEROES  (II)  SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE 

479-461 

^  Eastern  and  Western  Hellas  compared.  In  the  generation  that 
defended  Hellas  against  the  assaults  of  Persia  and  Carthage,  social 
conditions  in  the  western  colonies  and  in  the  mother  country,  though 
outwardly  presenting  certain  contrasts,  were  at  basis  similar.  The 
same  poets  and  philosophers  ministered  to  the  intellectual  needs  of 
both  regions;  and  the  temples  of  Acragas  and  Syracuse  were  not 
inferior  in  beauty  to  those  of  Aegina  and  Olympia.  In  contrast  with 
the  material  wealth  and  splendor  of  Sicily  and  Italy  we  may  place 
the  steadier  and  more  substantial  character  of  Spartans  and  Athen- 
ians. The  brief  view  of  life  and  thought  offered  in  this  chapter  aims 
to  represent  the  Hellenes  in  general,  and  more  particularly  the  Athen- 
ians, whose  social  life  has  for  us  a  deeper  interest  as  the  precursor  of 
the  splendid  age  of  Pericles. 

The  aristocratic  spirit  of  Athenian  society.  In  spite  of  the 
democratic  reforms  of  Cleisthenes  Athenian  society  remained  aristo- 
cratic; political  leadership  was  still  the  exclusive  prize  to  be  striven 
for  by  a  few  great  families.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  most  powerful 
gentes  had  either  been  totally  destroyed  or  brought  to  the  verge  of 
ruin.  The  Peisistratidae  were  in  perpetual  exile  as  men  accursed  of 
heaven.  The  condemnation  of  Miltiades  had  been  a  terrible  blow  to 
the  Philaidae;  and  it  required  all  the  prestige  of  his  son  Cimon  — 
won  through  brilliant  victories,  magnificent  generosity,  and  personal 
charm  —  to  rehabilitate  the  family.  A  greater  disgrace  had  fallen 
upon  the  Alcmeonidae,  the  gens  of  Cleisthenes,  through  their  associa- 
tion with  the  tyrannists  in  the  political  struggles  which  intervened  be- 
tween the  battles  of  Marathon  and  Salamis.  They  had  paid  the 
penalty  in  the  ostracism  of  their  representative  Megacles,  nephew  of 
the  famous  lawgiver,  and  still  more  in  the  suspicion  now  hanging  over 
them  of  having  plotted  with  the  enemy  during  the  Marathonian  cam- 

213 


214  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

paign.^  These  circumstances  had  tarnished  the  glory  of  their  achieve- 
ments in  building  a  temple  to  Apollo  at  Delphi,  in  victories  at  the 
great  national  games,  and  in  restoring  the  democracy  at  Athens.  Yet 
they  propped  up  their  house  by  fortunate  marriages.  The  hand  of 
Agariste,  sister  of  Megacles,  had  been  taken  by  Xanthippus,  the 
Athenian  admiral  at  Mycale  and  an  undoubted  patriot.  Years  after- 
ward Isodice,  another  daughter  of  the  house,  was  given  in  marriage 
to  Cimon.  It  was  left  to  a  son  of  the  former  marriage  —  Pericles  — 
to  shed  an  eternal  lustre  on  his  mother's  family,  which  during  the 
"  period  of  the  war-heroes  "  had  no  enviable  part  in  public  life. 
Aristeides,  son  of  Lysimachus,  was  likewise  a  eupatrid,  and  married 
into  the  wealthy  gens  of  Callias.  On  the  question  of  his  poverty,  it 
may  be  granted  as  possible  that  in  later  life  he  lost  his  property 
through  misfortune;  yet  he  certainly  had  an  estate  —  evidently  a 
farm  near  Phalerum  —  sufficiently  great  to  qualify  him  for  the  archon- 
ship.  Apparently  his  rival  Themistocles,  as  has  been  explained,  had 
common  interests  with  the  commercial  class,  but  his  membership  in 
the  gens  of  the  Lycomidae,  who  were  priests  at  the  "  Shrine  of 
Initiation  "  at  Phyla,  their  deme,  proves  him  of  eupatrid  blood.^ 

Aeschylus,  524-456.  In  the  same  class  with  these  men  of  action 
may  be  placed  one  who  desired  above  all  things  to  be  considered  a 
loyal  citizen  who  had  done  good  service  for  his  country  at  Marathon 
—  the  poet  Aeschylus.  In  his  days  the  man  of  deeds  was  greater 
than  the  artist;  and  it  is  almost  in  spite  of  himself  that  we  describe 
him  as  a  literary  man,  most  creative  of  ancient  dramatists.  In  his 
hands  the  action  had  greater  scope,  though  still  secondary  to  the 
chorus.  Not  merely  the  intense  productivity  of  his  genius,  but  the 
splendid  qualities  of  his  seven  surviving  dramas,  place  him  among 
the  world's  greatest  poets. ^ 

Pindar,  about  520-441.  Contemporary  with  Aeschylus  lived 
Pindar,  a  Boeotian,  the  most  famous  of  lyrists.  Like  Aeschylus  he 
was  nobly  born ;  but  he  was  also  a  priest  by  family  right.  We  know 
him  chiefly  through  his  choral  songs  in  honor  of  victors  at  the  great 
national  games;  of  other  poems  we  have  a  few  precious  fragments.     A 

1  Cleisthenes;  p.  117  f.  Peisistratidae,  p.  116.  Miltiades;  p.  171  f.  The  Philaidae  were 
his  gens.     Alcmeonidae;   p.   111. 

2  Xanthippus,  member  of  the  Buzigae,  a  priestly  gens.  Isodice;  Plut.  Cim.  4  (probably 
grand-daughter  of  the  .same  Megacles).  Aristeides;  Plut.  Arist  25.  Demetrius,  in  Plut. 
Arist.  1.  It  is  wholly  unlikely  that  the  Athenians  excused  him  from  the  constitutional  re- 
quirement.    Themistocles;    Plut.    Thcni.    1    tqiioting  Simonides). 

3  Ninety  plays  were  ascribed  to  him   by  the   ancients.     Earlier  drama;    p.    86,    145. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  215 

younfrer  contemporary  was  Bacchylides  of  Ceos,  a  lyric  poet  like 
Pindar,  though  inferior  in  genius.  The  discovery,  1896,  of  a  papyrus 
containing  several  entire  odes  of  this  poet,  in  addition  to  fragments, 
makes  him  a  useful  source  for  the  cultural  history  of  the  period.  On 
Aeschylus,  Pindar,  and  Bacchylides  we  have  to  depend  largely  for 
knowledge  of  the  best  thought  and  sentiment  of  Athens  and  Hellas  in 
the  age  of  Ilieron,  Thcmistocles,  and  Cimon. 

Divine  virtues  of  the  aristocracy.  In  a  small  class  of  Athenian 
nobles,  and  in  wider  circles  within  less  progressive  states,  there  sur- 
vived an  intensely  aristocratic  spirit,  which  found  brilliant  expression 
in  Pindar.  For  the  glory  of  his  class  he  has  transmuted  into  excel- 
lence certain  blemishes  of  the  older  mythology.  In  the  loves  of  gods 
for  mortal  women  he  sees  the  working  of  a  beneficent  purpose  for 
grafting  divine  virtues  on  the  human  race.  From  such  unions  sprang 
the  heroes  of  old,  patterns  of  manly  virtue.  Their  natures  were  the 
heritage  of  the  families  which  tliey  founded  and  which  formed  the 
nobility  of  every  Hellenic  state.  Fortunate  is  the  city  ruled  by  such 
a  stock:  "Happy  is  Lacedaemon,  blessed  is  Thessaly;  in  both 
reigneth  a  race  sprung  from  one  sire,  from  Heracles,  bravest  in  the 
fight."  *  While  the  youthful  scion  of  such  a  family  wins  the  Pythian 
or  the  Olympic  victories  which  Pindar  celebrates  in  song,  his  elders 
apply  themselves  to  politics:  "  His  noble  brethren  also  will  we 
praise  because  they  exalt  and  make  great  the  Thessalians'  common- 
wealth. For  in  the  hands  of  good  men  lieth  the  good  piloting  of  the 
cities  wherein  their  fathers  ruled."  ^ 

Natural  endowment  versus  acquired  learning.  In  this  aristo- 
cratic philosophy  of  life  a  large  place  is  inevitably  held  by  natural 
endowment,  as  contrasted  with  acquired  skill,  yet  nothing  can  be 
achieved  Vv'ithout  toil.  "  By  inborn  worth  doth  one  prevail  mightily; 
yet  whoso  hath  but  precepts  is  a  vain  man,  and  is  fain  now  for  this 
thing  and  now  again  for  that;  yet  a  sure  step  planneth  he  not  at  any 
tinie,  but  handleth  countless  enterprises  with  a  purpose  that  achieveth 
naught."  ^  "  If  one  be  born  with  excellent  gifts,  then  may  another 
who  sharpeneth  his  natural  edge  speed  him,  God  helping,  to  an 
exceeding  weight  of  glory.  Without  toil  there  have  triumphed  a  very 
few."  ^     "Each  hath  his  several  art;   but   in  straight  paths  it  be- 

4  Pyth.    X.    1    ff. 

5  Pyth.    X    (end). 

6  Pindar,  Nrvi.   iii.  44  ff. 

7  Ol.  xi.  22  ff. 


216  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

hoveth  him  to  walk,  and  to  strive  hard  wherein  his  nature  setteth 
him.     Thus  worketh  strength  in  act  and  mind  in  counsels."^: 

The  noble  youth.  Even  in  3'outh  is  made  manifest  the  righteous 
mind  of  the  ideal  lord :  "  For  he  was  a  boy  with  boys,  yet  in  counsels 
an  old  man  of  a  hundred  years.  The  evil  tongue  he  robbeth  of  its 
loud  voice,  and  hath  learned  to  abhor  the  insolent,  neither  will  he 
make  strife  against  the  good,  nor  tarry  when  he  hath  a  deed  in  hand. 
A  brief  span  hath  opportunity  for  man,  but  of  him  it  is  known  surely 
when  it  cometh,  and  he  waiteth  thereon,  a  servant  but  no  slave."  ^ 

The  nobility  in  war.  Such  men  of  noble  heritage  and  athletic 
training  stood  ready  in  need  to  endure  the  brunt  of  battle  for  their 
country;  and  when  bronze-shielded  Ares  has  given  one  over  to  death, 
*'  yet  there  remaineth  for  the  valiant  a  recompense  of  renown.  For 
let  whoso  amid  the  cloud  of  war  from  his  beloved  country  wardeth  off 
the  bloody  shower,  and  worketh  havoc  in  the  enemy's  host,  know 
assuredly  that  for  the  race  of  his  fellow-citizens  he  maketh  their  re- 
nown wax  mightily,  )'ea  when  he  is  dead  even  as  while  he  was  yet 
alive."  ^° 

Public  and  social  service.  Constant,  too,  is  he  in  worship  "  at  all 
festivals  of  the  gods;  "  "devoted  with  guileless  soul  to  peace  and  to 
the  welfare  of  his  state,"  employing  his  wealth  for  the  public  good, 
in  patronage  of  the  arts  cultivated  by  his  class,  and  in  hospitality. 
"  Sweet  is  his  spirit  toward  the  company  of  his  guests,  yea  sweeter 
than  the  honey-comb,  the  toil  of  bees."  ^^ 

A  social  gathering.  We  catch  interesting  glimpses  of  this  social 
life  in  the  banquets  of  men.  Ion,  a  poet  of  Chios,  tells  of  such  a 
social  gathering  which  he  attended  at  Athens  when  a  boy.  After  the 
libation  of  wine  to  the  gods,  the  guests  asked  Cimon  to  sing,  and  he 
complied  with  such  success  as  to  win  the  warm  applause  of  the  com- 
pany. Here  was  a  man  who  had  never  studied  music  but  who,  to 
amuse  his  fellow-guests,  was  willing  to  sing  —  probably  a  rollicking 
sailor-song.  Afterward  he  told  the  company  the  cleverest  thing  he 
had  done  in  his  life  —  how  in  the  division  of  spoils  he  had  outwitted 
the  wily  lonians  under  his  command.^"  But  the  joy  of  one  of  these 
banquets,  and  the  dreams  stimulated  by  wine,  Bacchylides  has  well 
described :  — 

8  Nem.  i.  25  ff. 
0  Pyth.   iv.   281   ff. 

10  Isth.  vi.   vi.  26  ff. 

11  J.'th.  ii.  39;  Ol.   iv.   15  ff. 

12  H.  Civ.  no.  85  (Ion) ;  Stesimbrotus,   in  Piut.   Cim.  4. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  217 


"  When  as  the  cups  go  swiftly  round,  a  sweet  subduing  power  warms  the 
heart,  and  blending  with  the  gifts  of  Dionysus,  a  presage  of  the  Cyprian  god- 
dess flutters  the  mind.  That  power  sends  a  man's  thoughts  scaring ;  straight- 
way he  is  stripping  cities  of  their  diadem  of  towers, —  he  dreams  that  he 
shall  be  monarch  of  the  world;  his  halls  gleam  with  gold  and  ivory;  over  the 
sunlit  sea  his  wheat-ships  bring  wealth  untold  from  Egypt  —  such  are  the 
raptures  of  the  reveller's  soul."  ^^ 

Cimon,  youth  and  man.  As  a  young  man  Cimon  had  acquired 
an  unenviable  reputation  for  disorderly  habits  and  excesses  in  drink; 
handsome  enough  with  his  tall  stature  and  thick  curly  locks,  he  dis- 
played but  a  dull  wit  and  won  no  better  nickname  than  simpleton; 
yet  in  later  years  he  developed  a  noble  character,  able  in  command 
by  land  or  sea,  incorruptible,  public-spirited,  social  and  generous. 
Any  demesman  was  at  liberty  uninvited  to  pluck  his  fruit  or  sit  at 
his  table;  and  whenever  he  went  through  the  streets  he  was  accom- 
panied by  servants  who  distributed  clothes  and  money  among  the 
needy  citizens.^* 

The  social  side  of  Themistocles.  Themistocles,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  man  of  superior  dignity  and  of  vastly  greater  mental  power, 
lacked  the  faculty  of  unbending  at  social  gatherings.  Delighting  in 
hospitality,  he  gave  sumptuous  banquets;  and  though  he  did  not  ven- 
ture to  sing  to  his  guests,  he  kept  in  his  home  a  famous  lyrist  for 
their  entertainment.  His  social  field,  however,  was  the  market-place 
and  the  Pnyx.  There  he  met  the  citizens  and  saluted  each  one  by 
name;  and  they,  pleased  with  this  individual  attention,  thought  there 
was  no  man  in  the  world  like  Themistocles.  They  readily  brought 
him  their  disputes  for  arbitration;  and  in  such  cases  he  always 
showed  himself  a  just  judge. ^^  Again  when  as  general  he  was  asked 
to  break  the  law  for  the  benefit  of  his  friend  Simonides,  he  replied: 
"  You  would  be  no  good  poet  if  you  composed  contrary  to  metrical 
rules,  and  I  no  good  magistrate,  if  I  should  grant  a  favor  in  viola- 
tion of  the  laws."  ^°  It  was  this  reputation,  rather  than  that  given 
him  by  enemies,  which  caused  Hellenic  states  to  choose  him  arbitra- 
tor of  their  disputes. ^^ 

Democratic  tendency  of  society ;  Aeschylus.  In  Athens  thought 
and  custom  gravitated  irresistibly  toward  democracy.     The  great  rep- 

13  Bacchyl.   Frag.   16. 

i4Plut.  Chn.  4  f.,   10  f.,  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  27. 

15  Plut.  Them.  2,  5,  17  f.,  21  f. 

16  Plut.   Them.  5. 

17  P.  201. 


218  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

resentative  of  the  tendency  was  Aristeides,  whose  whole  heart  was  in 
the  work  of  social  and  political  equalization,  whereas  Themistocles,  a 
man  of  aristocratic  taste,  championed  the  cause  as  a  means  to  the 
aggrandizement  of  his  state.  In  literature  Aeschylus,  though  a 
eupatrid,  glows  with  a  passion  for  freedom  and  gives  his  sympathy 
without  reserve  to  the  lowly.  Against  the  aristocratic  tradition  which 
made  the  eupatrid  good  and  god-beloved  and  the  poor  base  and 
vicious,  Aeschylus  upholds  a  more  rational  view  of  right  and  wrong 
and  of  their  reward  and  punishment.  "  Wealth  is  no  protection  for 
a  man  who  in  full-fed  insolence  kicks  into  annihilation  the  mighty 
altar  of  Justice;  but  the  resistless  child  of  Ate  tempts  him  on.  .  .  . 
To  his  prayer  no  God  lends  an  ear,  but  destroys  the  unjust  man."  ^* 
In  the  poor  no  less  than  in  the  rich  live  virtues :  — 

Justice  shines  in  smoke-grimed  homes  and  honors  the  life  that  is  righteous. 
With  averted  eyes  she  leaves  the  gold-bespangled  palaces  by  polluted  hands 
defiled,  and  goes  to  the  abode  that  is  holy,  not  reverencing  the  power  of 
wealth  sealed  with  spurious  renown;  and  all  things  she  guides  to  their  ap- 
pointed end.i^ 

He  makes  us  understand  the  feelings  of  a  woman  who  has  been  taken 
captive  in  war,  enslaved,  and  subjected  to  injustice  and  brutality:  — 

And  I  —  the  Gods  have  crushed  me  in  the  fall 

Of  my  far-off  war-Ieaguered  home, 
Have  hailed  me  from  my  father's  house  a  thrall, 

Unto  an  evil  doom. 

And  I  must  brook  the  brutal  recklessness  — 

My  life  is  not  mine  to  control  — 
Which  calls  injustice  justice,  must  suppress 

The  loathing  of  my  soul.-** 

Such  sentiments  had  their  effect  upon  his  audience.  Perhaps  his 
greatest  social  interest  was  in  woman,  whose  traditional  standing  in 
society  was  now  suffering  impairment. 

The  social  standing  of  women.  Their  social  power.  We  have 
seen  the  great  families  of  Athens  connecting  themselves  closely  with 
one  another  by  intermarriage.  It  was  still  no  uncommon  thing,  too, 
for  a  noble  to  take  a  wife  from  abroad;  in  fact  the  number  of  great 
men  descended  from  non-Athenian  mothers  in  the  period  before  and 

18  Aesch.    Agamrntnon,   381    ff. 

19  Aesch.   Agam.   772-81;   cf.   Bacchyl.   i.   49  ff. 

20  Aesch.  Choephoroe  (Libation-Bearers),   73-81. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  219 

immediately  after  the  Persian  war  is  remarkable.  They  include 
Cleisthenes,  Miltiades,  Cimon,  and  Themistocles.  However  these 
foreign  women  may  have  been  received  in  society,  they  certainly 
^  brought  no  disgrace  or  political  handicap  upon  their  illustrious  sons. 
The  story  that  because  of  the  foreign  extraction  of  his  mother,  The- 
mistocles was  baseborn  is  an  idle  tale  —  invented  probably  by  some 
ignorant  rhetorician.  He  was  as  thoroughly  a  citizen  as  Cleisthenes 
and  Cimon,  and  had  the  same  right  to  hold  office.  It  was  in  full 
accord,  too,  with  prevailing  custom  that  he  gave  his  daughter  Italia 
in  marriage  to  a  citizen  of  Chios. -^  The  women  who  were  thus  taken 
and  given  in  marriage  were  not  mere  pawns  on  the  political  chess- 
board. Whether  at  Athens  or  among  her  neighbors,  high-born  ladies 
were  freer  and  wielded  greater  social  influence  in  this  aristocratic 
f)eriod  than  did  those  of  the  Periclean  age  and  after.  This  fact 
is  noticeable  in  the  pages  of  Herodotus,  who  having  breathed  the 
same  aristocratic  atmosphere,  has  been  able  to  appreciate  the  power  of 
woman  in  the  earlier  history  of  his  race.  We  find  the  same  condition 
reflected  in  the  poetry  of  the  age.  In  the  opinion  of  Bacchylides 
Aegina  could  have  no  greater  praise  than  the  patriotic  songs  of  her 
girls : 

"  Yea,  and  thy  glory  is  a  theme  for  the  high  vaunt  of  some  maiden,  as 
oft  with  her  white  feet  she  moved  o'er  thy  sacred  soil,  bounding  lightly 
as  a  joyous  fawn  toward  the  flowery  hills  with  her  glorious  neighbors  and 
companions.  And  when  they  have  crowned  themselves  with  wreaths  of 
young  flowers  and  of  reeds,  in  the  festive  fashion  of  their  isle,  they  hymn 
thy  power,  O  queen  of  the  thrice  hospitable  land."  22 

Undomestic  women.  The  lyrics  of  Pindar  now  extant  are  not 
such  as  to  light  up  for  us  the  family  circle;  but  heie  and  there  we 
discover  in  them  a  gleam  of  life  within  the  household.  Of  un- 
domestic women  the  Greeks  had  examples  among  the  goddesses  — 
especially  military  Athena  and  huntress  Artemis.  Naturally  they 
reappear  in  myths,  and  the  type  seems  familiar  to  the  poet.  Such 
was  Cyrene  who  "  loved  not  the  pacings  to  and  fro  before  the  loom 
nor  the  delights  of  feasting  with  her  fellows  within  the  house;  but 
with  bronze  javelins  and  a  sword  she  fought  against  and  slew  wild 
beasts  of  prey;  yea  and  much  peace  and  surety  she  gave  thereby  to 
her  father's  herds."  ^^     More  frequent  were  the  girls  whose  young 

21  Birth   of   Cimon;    Plut.    Ciyn.    4.     Of   Themistocles;    Plut.    Them.    1.    Such   marriages 
were  in  good  standing  till  451;  see  p.  292.     Italia;   Plut.    Them.  32. 

22  Bacchyl.    xii.    77   ff. 

23  Find.  Pyth,  Vf..  18  ff. 


220  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

minds  were  entranced  by  the  beauty  and  the  prowess  of  the  youthful 
athlete.  Not  seldom,  in  song,  was  the  bride  a  prize  in  foot  or 
chariot  race.^*  The  social  freedom  of  her  sex  was  such  as  to  admit 
of  "  a  wedlock  in  which  hearts  are  wedded,"  graced  with  "  marriage 
tables  and  the  sound  of  many  voices  in  hymeneal  song,  such  as  the 
bride's  girl-mates  are  wont  to  sing  at  eventide  with  merry  min- 
strelsy." -^  The  ideal  woman  is  the  mother  of  warriors  and  athletes,  u^ 
the  mistress  of  a  household,  wherein  "  abideth  love  steadfastly." 
This  ideal  may  well  have  been  realized  in  the  life  of  Cimon  and  his 
wife  Isodice,  of  whom  he  was  passionately  fond,  and  whose  death  left 
him  inconsolable.  A  poet  friend  tried  in  elegies  to  moderate  his 
grief.-**  The  fact  that  poetry  could  be  devoted  to  such  a  purpose  may 
be  placed  among  the  indications  of  a  higher  social  regard  for  woman 
than  can  be  proved  for  the  following  generation.  Similarly  the  wife 
of  Themistocles  had  her  own  way  with  her  husband,  if  indeed  there 
be  a  grain  of  truth  in  the  anecdote  which  represents  Themistocles  as 
speaking  thus  to  his  young  son:  "  You  have  more  power  than  any- 
one else  in  Greece;  for  the  Athenians  command  the  rest  of  the  Greeks, 
I  command  the  Athenian^,,  your  mother  commands  me,  and  you  com- 
mand your  mother."  -^ 

The  emancipated  woman;  Elpinice.  The  social  freedom  of 
young  women.  An  example  of  the  "  emancipated  woman,"  strong 
of  character  and  a  power  in  politics,  yet  doubtless  personally  win- 
some, was  Elpinice,  sister  of  Cimon.  Callias  the  wealthy,  falling  in 
love  with  her,  obtained  her  hand  in  marriage.  She  charmed  the 
famous  painter  Polygnotus,  who  introduced  her  portrait  among  the 
Trojan  matrons  in  one  of  his  great  mural  scenes.  As  an  example  of 
her  political  influence  we  may  cite  the  fact  that  she  successfully  inter- 
vened with  Pericles  in  favor  of  her  brother  when  he  was  prosecuted.-* 
A  woman  who  thus  freely  walked  in  public  could  not  escape  the 
vile  tongues  of  slander.  We  may  feel  confident,  however,  that  her 
freedom  wrought  her  no  actual  harm.  It  is  significant,  too,  that  there 
remained  even  in  this  age  at  least  occasional  lovemaking  and  court- 
ship preliminary  to  marriage.  This  was  true  not  only  of  Elpinice  but 
of  Themistocles'  daughter.  Of  two  rivals  the  father  favored  the 
man  of  worth,  rather  than  the  one  who  was  wealthy,  explaining  that 

■iiPyth.   ix.    117  f.;   x.   59;   Ol.   i.   69  ff. 

25  O/.  vii  (init.);  Pyth.   ii.   16  ft. 

26  Plut.  Cim.  4. 

27  Plut.   Them.   18;  Cato  Mai.  8. 

28  Plut.   Cir.i.   4,   14;   Pericles,  10. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  221 

he  preferred  a  man  without  riches  to  riches  without  a  man.-'-*  The 
presence  of  daughters  at  banquets  given  by  their  father  is  reflected  in 
a  drama  of  Aeschylus: 

Ah,  often  and  often, 

Had  her  sire's  halls  thrilled  to  the  glad  outpouring 
Of  her  songs  by  the  table  banquet-laden, 
When  the  wine-drops  were  spilled,  and  the  pure-voiced  maiden 

Called  down  heaven's  blessings  in  chants  adoring. ^° 

Under  these  circumstances  a  girl,  while  willing  to  submit  to  the 
inevitable,  might  hope  for  a  congenial  mate  and  for  happiness  in 
marriage: 

Ah  hush !  —  what   thing  Fate  meaneth  to  bring,   even  that  and  none  other 

must  needs  betide. 
The  purpose  designed  of  the  mighty  mind  of  Zeus  none  crosseth  nor  turneth 

aside : 
Yet  O  that  my  fate,  that  my  wedded  state  might  now  at  the  last  be  peace 

and  bliss 

Such  as  many  a  woman  hath  known  ere  this.^^ 

They  should  have  a  voice,  therefore,  in  choosing  their  husbands. 
The  idea  of  brutally  compelling  girls  to  marry  men  they  abhor,  whom 
to  escape  they  would  gladly  die,  is  denounced  in  the  strongest  terms 
by  Aeschylus.^"  This  poet  must  have  had  an  opportunity  to  study 
women,  only  possible  on  the  assumption  that  they  mingled  socially 
with  men;  and  he  must  have  found  excellent  material  for  his  dramatic 
portraits.  His  strongest  human  character  is  a  woman.  Queen  Clytem- 
nestra,  who  possessed  great  intellectual  strength  and  a  "  man's-way 
planning,  hoping  heart."  In  killing  her  husband  she  but  served  as  a 
link  in  the  resistless  chain  of  blood -revenge. 

Social  forces  for  the  seclusion  of  women.  But  the  honorable  and 
relatively  free  place  of  woman  in  society  was  not  assured.  There 
were  forces  at  work  for  her  seclusion,  which  likewise  find  a  mouth- 
piece in  one  of  the  characters  of  Aeschylus:  "  Never,  either  in 
trouble  or  in  dear  prosperity  may  I  have  to  dwell  with  womankind. 
For  if  they  have  the  upper  hand  their  effrontery  is  such  that  one  can- 
not keep  their  company,  and  if  they  are  in  fear,  they  are  a  yet  greater 
nuisance  to  the  state.  ,  .  .  Matters  out  of  doors  are  the  care  of  the 
men  —  let  not  a  woman  have  a  voice  in  them :     Keep  you  at  home 

29  Plut.   Them.  19. 

30  Aesch.  Agani.  243-5  (Iphigeneia). 

31  Aesch.  Suppliants,  1047-52. 
12  Throughout  the  Suppliants, 


222  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  thus  cause  no  further  mischief."  ^^  An  objection  to  her  having  a 
hand  in  affairs  was  found  in  certain  alleged  defects  of  her  character: 
"  It  is  natural  to  the  impulsive  character  of  woman  to  assent  to  what 
is  pleasing  in  preference  to  what  is  certainly  known.  Too  credulous 
the  boundaries  of  her  mind  and  encroached  on  by  swift  inroads;  and 
a  report  spread  by  her  perishes  by  a  quick  fate."  ^* 

Dawn  of  a  masculine  age.  After  these  restrictions  on  her  activ- 
ity the  next  step  was  to  rob  woman  of  her  motherhood.  Contrary 
to  the  principle  of  Attic  law  that  the  son  could  be  alienated  from  the 
mother  by  no  legal  process  whatsoever,  the  Apollo  of  this  generation 
declares  the  son  to  be  of  no  kin  with  the  mother  —  the  father  to  be 
the  only  parent!  ^^  At  hand  was  the  hard  masculine  age  of  Pericles, 
whose  political  intensity  reduced  woman  and  homelife  to  a  minimum. 
In  keeping  is  the  strongly  masculine  character  of  Athena.  As  presi- 
dent of  the  tribunal  that  voted  the  acquittal  of  Orestes  for  the  murder 
of  his  mother,  she  renders  her  opinion  in  the  following  words:  — 

"  With  me  it  rests  to  give  my  sentence  last. 
I  to  Orestes'  cause  shall  add  this  vote; 
For  mother  is  there  none  that  gave  me  birth. 
I  am  wholly  —  save  for  marriage  —  with  the  male 
With  all  my  soul;   I  take  the  father's  side. 
Of  so  much  less  account  I  hold  the  death 
Of  her  who  slew  her  lord,  the  household's  head."^^ 

The  family.  The  hereditary  curse.  In  spite  of  tendencies 
detrimental  to  woman  the  family  remained  a  sacred  institution,  whose 
religious  obiect  was  the  worship  of  the  dead  and  of  the  other  house- 
hold gods.  It  is  meet  that  men  grieve  for  the  ills  of  their  house,  love 
their  kin,  and  honor  their  parents  next  to  God;  "  even  as  the  father's 
soul  warmeth  for  his  lawful  son,  and  he  prayeth  that  his  children's 
children  preserve  and  with  acquired  glory  amplify  the  honors  of  the 
family."  ^"  Any  disturbance  of  this  harmony  is  monstrous.  "  If 
there  be  enmity  between  kin,  the  Fates  stand  aside  and  would  fain 
hide  the  shame."  ^®  Most  heinous  is  the  shedding  of  kindred  blood. 
Ixion,  the  Cain  of  Hellenic  legend,  the  first  to  commit  this  awful  sin, 
chained  in  punishment  to  a  winged  wheel,  writhes  in  everlasting 
agony. ^^  Far  from  being  pardonable,  this  crime  grows  and  pre- 
ss Aesch.  Seven  against   Thebes,   187  ff. 

34  Aesch.  A  gam.  -183  ff. 

35  Aesch.  Eumenides,  657  ff. 

36  Aesch.    Eum.    734    ff.    Clytemnestra   had    killed   her   husband    Agamemnon,    father    of 
Orestes. 

37  Find.  Nem.  i.  81  f. ;  vii.  98  ff. ;   Ol.  x.  86  ff. 

38  Pyth.    iv.    145   f. 
39Pyth.    a.    21   ff. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  223 

duces  other  more  terrible  crimes.  The  house  of  Cadmus,  founder 
of  Thebes,  is  doomed  to  misfortune  because  it  has  offended  the  gods 
in  various  ways.''"  Oedipus,  heir  to  the  power  and  the  woes  of  this 
stock,  is  driven  unwittingly  to  the  commission  of  a  dreadful  sin.  He 
suffers  unspeakable  agony  of  mind,  and  his  children  inherit  the  curse. 
His  daughter  Antigone  is  buried  alive;  his  two  sons  kill  each  other 
in  civil  war;  the  whole  family  sinks  to  ruin.  In  this  case  the  guilt, 
growing  from  generation  to  generation,  brings  its  legitimate  punish - 
tnent. 

Salvation  through  suffering.  But  the  gods  are  merciful  and 
have  provided  a  way  of  escape  from  sin.  This  principle  is  illustrated 
in  the  house  of  Agamemnon.  His  father  had  committed  an  enormous 
crime,  and  he  haH'Tnherited  the  curse.  By  it  he  was  driven  madly  to 
more  serious  offences.  He  sacrificed  his  own  daughter  Iphigeneia  be- 
fore sailing  to  Troy;  and  after  capturing  the  city,  he  violated  the 
temples  and  altars  of  its  gods.  When,  therefore,  he  returned  home, 
he  reaped  his  reward  —  stabbed  to  death  by  his  wife  Clytemnestra. 
Next  their  son  Orestes,  as  the  avenger  of  his  father,  murdered  his 
mother.  The  guilt  he  had  inherited  brought  forth  this  monstrous 
fruit.  Then  the  Furies  of  his  mother  pursued  him,  tormenting  him 
with  the  most  intense  suffering.  But  this  agonizing  experience 
brought  him  knowledge  of  the  law  of  righteousness  and  of  his  duty  to 
it;  suffering  taught  him  obedience.  Thereupon  he  was  purified  by 
Apollo  at  Delphi,  and  acquitted  by  the  council  of  the  Areopagus 
sitting  under  the  presidency  of  Athena.  In  this  way  the  family  was 
ultimately  saved  from  the  consequences  of  its  guilt. 

Zeus  has  placed  mortals  in  the  path  to  wisdom,  and  has  ordained  that 
suffering  bring  instruction;  for  even  in  sleep  the  painful  memory  of  woe, 
presenting  itself  to  the  heart,  instils  obedience,  which  comes  thus  to  the 
unwilling;  and  surely  this  is  a  mercy  of  the  gods  who  sit  on  their  awful 
thrones  with  power  to  compel.*^ 

By  these  means,  with  God's  aid,  a  family  works  out  its  own  redemp- 
tion in  suffering;  but  for  future  tranquillity  there  is  need  of  resigna- 
tion; "We  shall  know  our  fate  clearly  with  the  morning  dawn."  ^- 
The  growing  love  of  peace.  The  tempering  of  justice  with 
mercy,  described  above,  is  in  keeping  with  a  growing  spirit  of  kindli- 
ness, which  expresses  itself  in  diverse  forms.     In  truth  we  are  sur- 

40  Aesch.  Seven  against  Thebes,  681  f. ;  Choeph.  464  £f. 

41  Aesch.  A  gam.   175-82. 

42  Aesch.  Agam.  252. 


224  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

prised  to  discover  in  this  martial  age  so  much  humanity,  so  strong 
yearnings  for  peace.  In  the  poets  there  is  less  of  the  glory  of  war 
than  of  its  cruelty  and  suffering.  Aeschylus  details  the  soldier's 
hardships: 

Of  travail  might  I  tell,  bleak  bivouac, 

Of  iron-bound  coasts,  hard-lying,  groans  on  groans  — 

Who  knows  how  many  ?  —  though  the  straitened  days. 

Then  came  new  ills  on  land  to  vex  us  more; 

Hard  by  our  foes'  walls  through  the  nights  we  lay; 

And  dews  from  heaven,  and  reek  of  marshy  mead 

Down  drizzled,  clammy-cleaving,  rotting  vest, 

And  making  man's  hair  like  a  wild  beast's  fell. 

But  O  to  tell  of  winters  that  slew  birds, 

By  snows  of  Ida  made  intolerable. 

Of  heats  when  on  his  midnoon  couch  the  sea 

Unrippled  sank  and  slept,  and  no  breath  stirred.'*^ 

Inconceivably  horrible  is  the  sacking  of  a  city:  — 

Pitiable  it  is  to  thrust  down  to  Hades  this  venerable  city  captive  of  the 
savage  spear,  shamefully  wasted  in  crumbling  dust  by  the  Achaean  chief. 
Alas  that  maids  and  matrons,  their  vesture  rent,  be  dragged  away  by  the 
hair  as  horses  by  the  mane,  while  the  people  with  mingled  wailings  meet 
their  doom  and  in  their  midst  the  rifled  city  cries  aloud :  "  I  dread  your 
evil  fate !  "  Sad  that  tender  girls  unwed  should  exchange  the  shelter  of  their 
homes  for  the  bitter  path  of  slavery  —  Shall  I  not  count  the  dead  in  better 
plight  than  they? 

Many  are  the  ills  a  conquered  city  suffers.  This  man  drags  one  captive, 
another  he  murders,  that  quarter  he  sets  in  flames.  The  whole  town  is 
sullied  with  smoke,  and  Ares,  raving  wild,  fans  the  flame,  violating  religion.** 

The  poet  grieves,  too,  with  those  at  home  for  the  dear  ones  lost 
in  battle: 

Alas  and  alas  for  thy  tale  of  these. 

Dear  friends  sea-whelmed  tossed  to  and  fro, 

Dead  forms  that  sway  with  the  tumbling  seas 

In  their  endless  ebb  and  flow !  .  .  . 
They  are  mangled  in  dread  sea-whirlpits  wild, 

And  the  flesh  that  we  loved  is  torn 
By  the  dumb-lipped  child  of  the  Undefiled ! 

For  its  Lord  doth  the  void  home  mourn; 

And  the  childless  fathers  cry 

In  a  passion  of  agony. 

As  the  stroke  that  hath  fallen  from  on  high 
Now  first  to  their  ears  is  borne. *^ 

The  chafing  of  the  people  under  miseries  caused  by  needless  wars, 

43  Aesch.  A  gam.  555-66. 

44  Aesch.  Seven,  320-45. 

45  Aesch.   Pers.  274-7.  576-83. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  225 

their  hatred  of  the  magistrates  who  were  responsible  for  these  suf- 
ferings,*" made  for  peace,  whose  coming  appears,  "  even  as  after  the 
wintry  gloom,  in  the  flowry  months,  the  earth  blossometh  with  red 
roses."  *'  Consistently  the  poet  prays  God  to  defer  unto  the  utter- 
most an  impending  trial  of  valor  against  foreign  spears  and  to  "  grant 
unto  the  sons  of  the  men  of  Aetna  for  long  time  a  portion  in  good 
laws,  and  to  make  their  people  to  dwell  among  the  glories  that  the 
citizens  have  won."  ** 

"  Yea,  and  Peace,  mighty  Goddess,  brings  forth  wealth  for  mortals, 
and  the  flowers  of  honied  song;  her  gift  it  is  that  thigh-flesh  of  oxen 
and  of  fleecy  sheep  is  burnt  to  the  gods  in  yellow  flame  on  carven 
altars  and  that  youths  disport  themselves  with  bodily  feats,  and 
with  flutes  and  revels.  The  webs  of  red-brown  spiders  are  on  the 
iron-bound  handles  of  shields;  sharp-pointed  spears  and  two-edged 
swords  are  a  prey  to  rust.  No  blast  of  bronze  trumpet  is  heard; 
sleep  of  gentle  spirit,  that  comforts  the  heart  at  dawn,  is  not  stolen 
from  the  eyelids..  Joyous  feasting  abounds  in  the  streets,  and  songs 
in  praise  of  youth  flame  forth."  *^  "  O,  kindly  Peace,  daughter  of 
Righteousness,"  exclaims  Pindar,  "  thou  that  makest  cities  great  and 
holdest  the  supreme  keys  of  counsels  and  of  wars  .  .  .  thou  knowest 
how  alike  to  give  and  take  gentleness  in  due  season.  Thou  also  if 
any  have  moved  thy  heart  unto  relentless  wrath,  dost  terribly  confront 
the  enemy's  might,  and  sinkest  Insolence  in  the  sea."  ^° 
\i  Religion :  One  Supreme  Being.  Not  only  the  growing  kindliness 
of  the  age  but  also  its  religious  spirit  found  their  clearest  expression 
in  the  poets,  especially  in  Pindar  and  Aeschylus.  The  former  was 
more  conservative,  the  latter  more  progressive;  yet  both  hold  to  the 
hereditary  faith  of  their  race,  exalted  and  purified  by  splendid  in- 
telligence and  brilliant  imagination.  In  touch  with  the  best  thought 
of  the  age,  they  can  only  conceive  of  God  as  supreme  above  a  host  of 
celestial  spirits :  — 

Hear,  thou  whose  thoughts  are  from  times  eternal, 

Zeus,  blesser  and  blessed,  Creator  supernal ! 

Thou  art  throned  where  the  lordship  of  none  thou  obeyest; 

Beneath  no  stronger  thy  scepter  thou  swayest  .  .  . 

What  purpose  soever  thy  spirit  conceiveth, 

The  deed,  as  the  word,  thine  hand  achieveth.^i 

46  Aesch.  Agatn.  445  ff. 

47  Find.  Istk.   iii.  36  f. 

48  Find.  Nem.  ix.  28  ff. 

49  Bacchyl.    Frag.   3. 

50  Find.  Pyth.  viii.   1  ff. 

51  Aesch.  Suppl.  594-9. 


226  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

His  knowledge  is  equally  unlimited.  "  If  a  man  thinketh  that  in 
doing  aught  he  shall  be  hidden  from  God,  he  erreth."  ^-  Apollo 
beside  his  unerring  father,  "  giveth  heed  to  his  own  wisdom,  his  mind 
that  knoweth  all  things;  in  lies  it  hath  no  part,  neither  in  act  nor  in 
thought  may  god  or  man  deceive  him."  ^^  At  "  the  everlasting  cen- 
trestone  of  deep-murmuring  Earth,"  thou  foretellest  the  future;  and 
"  what  shall  come  to  pass  and  whence  it  shall  be  thou  discemest  per- 
fectly." ^* 

The  gods  are  pure.  The  stories  of  the  shameful  doings  of  the 
heavenly  powers  are  false  tales  cunningly  devised.  Such  is  the  story 
that  the  gods  once  feasted  on  the  shoulder  of  a  boy,  served  up  to 
them  by  the  father.  "  But  to  me  it  is  impossible  to  call  one  of  the 
blessed  gods  cannibal."  ^^  Similar  fictions  are  the  stories  of  their 
wars  with  one  another.  "  O  my  mouth,  fling  this  tale  from  thee; 
for  to  speak  evil  of  gods  is  hateful  wisdom,  and  loud  and  unmeasured 
words  strike  a  note  that  trembleth  upon  madness.  Of  such  things 
talk  thou  not;  leave  war  of  immortals  and  all  strife  aside."  ^^  God 
is  not  only  pure  but  the  author  of  all  good.  "  From  thee,  O  Zeus, 
Cometh  to  mortals  all  high  excellence;  longer  liveth  their  bliss  who 
have  thee  in  honor;  "  ^"  "  from  gods  come  all  means  of  mortal 
valor,  hereby  come  bards  and  men  of  mighty  hand  and  eloquent 
speech."  ^"'^  "  The  happiness  that  is  planted  by  the  favor  of  the  gods  is 
most  abiding  among  men."  ''°  "  It  behooveth  thee  therefore,  even  in 
the  midst  of  triumph,"  to  pray  that  "  the  favor  of  God  be  unfailing 
toward  the  fortune  of  thee  and  thine."  "^^ 

The  poetry  and  thought  of  Pindar  and  Aeschylus.  Pindar 
and  Aeschylus  combine,  in  the  highest  degree,  power,  splendor,  and 
sublimity;  both  walk  on  a  high  plane  of  religious  and  moral  purity. 
But  the  Pindaric  glitter  reflects  the  glory  of  earth  and  of  the  gods  who 
live  no  higher  than  Olympus,  whereas  the  words  of  Aeschylus  spring 
from  a  loftier  spiritual  and  moral  inspiration.  Yet  mark  the  mod- 
esty of  the  one  in  contrast  with  the  almost  pompous  pride  of  the 
other.     Aeschylus,  as  his  epitaph  teaches,  wished  to  be  remembered 

52  Pindar,  Ol.  i.  66  f. 

53  Pyth.  iii.  27  ff. 

54  Pyth.  vi.  3  f. ;  ix.  48  f. 

55  Ol.  i.  53. 

56  Ol.  ix.  35  ff. 

57  Isth.   iii.  6  ff. 

58  Pyth.    i.    41    ff. 

59  Nem.  viii.   17. 

60  Pyth.  viii.   71  f. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  227 

not  by  his  splendid  dramas,  but  by  his  part  in  the  battle  of  Mara- 
thon :  — 

This  tomb  the  dust  of  Aeschylus  doth  hide  — 
Euphorion's  son  aild  fruitful  Gela's  ])iide ; 
How  famed  his  valor  Marathon  may  tell, — 
And  long-haired  Medes,  who  knew  it  all  too  well. 

In  Pindar's  mind  the  glory  of  the  games  is  equalled  only  by  the 
poet's  art.  His  own  calling  he  esteems  above  the  statuary's  skill:  — 
"  No  sculptor  I,  that  I  should  fashion  images  to  rest  idly  on  their 
pedestals."  '^^  His  words  are  things  of  winged  life  and  fleet  motion: 
now  honey  bees  flitting  from  tale  to  tale,  now  bronze-tipped  javelins 
hurled  from  the  hand,  or  darts  shot  from  the  Muses'  far-delivering 
bow,  now  rushing  waves  or  a  gale  of  glorious  song.^-  His  finished 
poem  he  aptly  compares  to  a  majestic  palace,  whose  marbles  glitter 
in  the  sunlight:  "  Golden  pillars  will  I  set  up  in  the  porch  of  the 
house  of  my  song,  as  in  a  stately  palace-hall;  for  it  beseemeth  that 
in  die  forefront  of  the  work  the  entablature  shoot  far  its  splen- 
dor." *^^  A  minstrel  of  inborn  genius,  he  is  like  the  swift  eagle,  who 
loves  the  lone  bosom  of  the  cold  ether,  while  far  below  flock  his 
rivals,  men  of  acquired  cleverness  merely;  "  strong  in  the  multitude  of 
words,  they  are  but  crows  that  chatter  vainly  in  strife  against 
the  divine  bird  of  Zeus."  ^* 

Fine  Arts 

Importance  of  the  age  in  art.  The  age  was  as  notable  for  the 
fine  arts  as  for  lyric  and  dramatic  poetry.  In  the  history  of  art  it  is 
designated  as  a  "  transition,"  from  the  archaic  style  to  the  perfection 
of  the  Periclean  age.'^^  All  stages  of  growth,  however,  are  transitions; 
and  the  art  of  the  war  generation  had  as  positive  merits  as  any  other. 

In  our  political  study  of  the  Athens  of  this  generation  we  have 
noticed  the  fortification  of  the  city  as  a  political  necessity,  leaving 
its  adornment  for  consideration  as  an  element  of  culture.  The  dwell- 
ings of  the  citizens,  even  of  the  wealthy,  remained  modest  in  size  and 
simple  in  adornment :  "  In  private  life  they  practised  so  great  modera- 
tion that  even  if  any  of  you  knew  which  was  the  house  of  Aristcides 

61  Nem.  V.   1   f. 

62  Pvth.  i.   -H;   X.  53  f . ;   OI.   ix.   1  ff. ;   Nciii.  vi.  29-32. 

63  Oi.  vi.   1  ff. 

ei  Nefii.   iii.  fO  ff . ;   OI.   ii.   Q5  ff. 

05  Von   Mach,    Greek  Sculpture,   ch.    xv;    Gardner,  Six   Greek  Sculfitors,    chs.    ii,    iii. 


228  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

or  Miltiades  or  any  of  the  famous  men  of  old  you  would  find  it  no 
more  portentous  than  any  of  its  neighbors."  *"^  This  quotation 
from  Demosthenes  epitomizes  the  character  of  the  great  men  of  the 
Marathonian  generation  who  merged  their  personality  in  the  citizen 
body.  The  most  liberaLpatrons  of  art  were  Themistocles  and  Cimon. 
The  former  with  his  own  means  built  near  his  residence  a  shrine  to 
"  best  counselling  "  Artemis,*^"  and  began  preparing  the  summit  of 
the  Acropolis  to  serve  as  the  sacred  precinct  of  Athena's  temples. 
Then  from  the  sale  of  spoil  and  captives  taken  at  Eurymedon  Cimon 
built  the  huge  retaining  wall  along  the  south  edge,  which  gives  the 
hill  its  present  steepness  on  that  side  and  greatly  enlarges  the  area  of 
the  summit.  Under  his  supervision,  too,  was  erected,  from  the  spoils 
of  the  conflict  with  Persia  a  colossal  bronze  statue  of  Athena  on  the 
Acropolis,  to  the  west  of  the  old  Athena  temple,  which  the  Persians 
had  left  in  ruins.  The  goddess  stood  erect,  clad  in  full  armor; 
her  spear,  grasped  in  hand,  rested  upright  on  the  ground.  The 
visitor  to  Athens,  sailing  to  Peiraeus  past  Sunium,  was  made  aware 
of  this  Athena  by  the  gleam  of  the  sun  on  her  first  known  work  of 
Pheidias,  the  most  celebrated  sculptor  of  all  time.*'^ 

Market-Place  (Agora).  In  the  lower  city  Cimon  devoted  most  of 
his  attention  to  the  market-place,  which  lay  north  of  the  Areopagus. 
Here  in  his  age,  and  probably  under  his  administration,  the  Athenians 
erected  their  Council  Hall  for  the  sessions  of  the  Five  Hundred,  the 
Rotunda  for  the  prytaneis,  and  other  public  buildings.  Farther  to 
the  north,  probably  bordering  the  market  on  the  west,  was  placed  the 
King's  Porch  and  opposite  it  on  the  east  side,  the  Painted  Porch. 
The  former  may  have  survived  the  Persian  devastation,  the  latter 
was  erected  by  a  kinsman  of  Cimon.  In  the  former  tlie  King  held 
office  and  the  Council  of  the  Areopagus  met  in  special  sessions."^ 
The  plan  of  these  early  porches  is  not  known.  If,  as  has  been 
reasonably  conjectured,  the  Roman  basilica  —  name  and  form  —  was 
derived  from  the  Royal  porch  —  Basileios,  Basilike  —  at  Athens,  we 
must  assume  for  the  Athenian  model  an  oblong  building  with  an 

66  Demosthenes,  Olynthiac  Orations,  iii.  25. 

67  Plut.  Arist.  25.     Artemis  Aristoboule;   Plut.   Them.  22. 

68  Plut.   Cimon,  13.    Athena   "  Promachus,"   "  Champion  Athena."    Afterward  so-called; 
Gardner,  Anc.  Athens,  214.     Pans.  i.  28.  2. 

69  Bouleuterion.    Council    Hall.    Tholos,    Rotunda.    Stoa    Basileios,    King's    Porch.    Stoa 
Poikile,  Painted  Porch. 


BARBER  CUTTNG  HAIR 
(Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


SHOE  SHOP 
(Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


230  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

interior  colonnade  and  possibly,  in  addition,  a  portico  on  the  side 
that  faced  the  market. '° 

Polygnotus,  "  Battle  of  Marathon."  Part  of  the  interior  mural 
space  was  occupied  by  frescoes;  and  tlie  work  of  the  Painted  Porch 
was  done  by  Polygnotus  of  Thasos,  whom  Cimon  had  invited  to 
Athens,  and  with  whom  other  artists  collaborated.  The  most  famous 
of  these  pictures  was  the  Battle  of  Marathon,  which  included  among 
the  combatants  portraits  of  the  polemarch  Callimachus,  of  Miltiades 
and  Aeschylus."^  Polygnotus  was  the  first  great  Hellenic  painter. 
No  copy  of  any  of  his  works  has  survived,  and  in  truth  we  have  lit- 
tle knowledge  of  his  technique,  or  apart  from  vase  decoration,  of 
Greek  painting  in  general.  Undoubtedly  he  introduced  the  art  of 
frescoing  from  Ionia,  where  it  may  have  survived  even  from  Minoan 
times.  For  the  social  condition  of  artists  in  that  age  it  is  significant 
that  he  was  a  man  of  noble  birth  and  of  ample  fortune,  who  wrought 
for  the  love  of  art  and  for  the  honor  of  the  city  he  helped  adorn.  "- 
His  art  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  was  simple, —  with  but  a  faint  sug- 
gestion of  perspective, —  yet  dignified  and  noble  like  the  sculptures 
and  dramas  of  the  period. 

Shade  trees;  booths  and  shops.  Other  buildings  in  and  about 
the  market-place  need  not  detain  us  here.  The  plane  trees  planted  by 
Cimon  in  the  open  space,  quite  as  much  as  the  porticoes,  afforded  a 
welcome  protection  from  the  heat  and  glare  of  the  sun.  The  south- 
ern part  of  the  area  served  chiefly  political  uses;  the  northern,  trade. 
Dealers  in  bread,  cheese,  garlic,  fish,  wine,  and  other  food  stuffs,  in 
pots  and  pitchers,  in  oils,  perfumes,  and  books,  had  their  several 
wicker  booths,  closely  crowded  here;  and  the  noises  of  hawkers  and 
customers,  as  they  bartered  and  jangled,  were  like  unto  the  uproar  of 
Pandemonium.  In  the  afternoon  trade  yielded  to  lounging,  social 
talk,  and  philosophic  discussion.  Nearby  were  the  shops  of  barbers, 
perfumers,  shoemakers,  and  other  tradesmen  and  to  them  the  Athen- 
ians resorted  in  the  evening  for  meeting  friends  and  making  new 
acquaintances.'^^ 

Theseus   and   the   Theseum.     Another  building  erected   in   the 

VO  The  fact  that  it  was  used  as  an  office  is  evidence  that  it  was  in  part  a  room  enclosed 
by  walls,  though  it  may  have  been  simpler  than  the  Roman  basilica. 

71  Paus.  i.   15.  3  f. 

72  Plut.  Ciiii.  4. 

7.1  Plut.    Cim.    13;    cf.    Zinimern,    Greek    Commonwealth,    275   ff.    Social   resorts;    Lysias, 
Cripple,  19  f. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  231 

lower  city  in  this  period  deserves  consideration.  When  Cimon  had 
conquered  Scyros,  he  brought  home  from  that  island  what  purported 
to  be  the  bones  of  the  hero  Theseus  after  they  had  rested  there  four 
hundred  years.  In  ])ursuance  of  a  Delphic  oracle,  he  built,  east  of 
the  market-place  a  shrine  to  Theseus,  in  which  these  relics  were  de- 
posited. "  His  tomb  is  a  place  of  refuge  for  slaves  and  for  all  the 
poor  and  oppressed,  because  Theseus  in  life  was  the  champion 
and  the  avenger  of  the  poor,  and  always  kindly  hearkened  to  their 
prayers."  "*  It  was  in  keeping  with  the  humane  spirit  of  the  age, 
described  above,  that  the  Athenians  transformed  this  mythical  hero  into 
a  sympathetic  protector  of  the  lowly.  The  same  process  of  thought 
made  him  the  creator  of  his  country's  liberty,  the  founder  of  democ- 
racy. 

The  Academy.  Lastly  among  Cimon's  works  may  be  mentioned 
his  improvement  of  the  Academy,  a  precinct  of  Athena  on  the  banks 
of  the  Cephissus  northwest  of  Athens.  A  gymnasium  had  stood 
there  from  the  age  of  the  tyrants,  but  the  spot  was  dry  and  unsheltered. 
Cimon  converted  it  into  a  public  garden,  well  watered  and  shaded 
with  planes,  elms  and  other  trees,  under  which  were  pleasant  walks. "^ 
There  the  Athenian  boy  was  wont  "  to  run  races  beneath  the  sacred 
olives  along  with  some  modest  age-fellow;  crowned  with  white  olives, 
redolent  of  yew  and  careless  ease  and  of  leaf-shedding  white  poplar,  re- 
joicing in  the  season  of  spring  when  the  plane-tree  whispers  to  the 
elm."  '" 

Temples  and  sculpture.  While  in  our  study  of  this  age  our  in- 
terest has  centred  in  Athens,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  equal  or  even 
greater  public  improvements  were  being  made  throughout  Hellas, 
that  thus  far  Athens  received  much  more  from  the  rest  of  Hellas  than 
she  gave,  that  she  had  neither  temples  nor  works  of  utility  that  could 
compare  with  those  of  Acragas  and  Syracuse,  already  mentioned. 
Aegina,  too,  had  a  beautiful  temple,  apparently  to  a  local  goddess 
Aphaia,  built  about  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Salamis  and  a  quarter  of 
a  century  later  was  finished  the  great  temple  to  Zeus  at  Olympia.  All 
these  shrines  had  their  decorative  scultpures,  often  symbolical  of  the 
recent  struggle  for  freedom.  Great  gains  were  made  in  the  representa- 
tion of  the  human  form.     The  anatomy  of  the  body  was  now  vastly 

74  Plut.  Ci7n.  8;   Thes.  36;  cf.  Paus.  i.   17.  2;  30.  4. 

75  Plut.  Cim.  13. 

76  Aristoph.  Clouds,  1005.  ff. 


2?il 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


better  known;  and  the  fixedness  of  attitude  and  expression  yielded 
to  mobility  and  life;  monotony  of  posture  gave  way  to  variety. 

Myron.     The  greatest  artistic   achievement  of  the   age   is  to  be 
credited  to  JMyron  of  Athens,  the  most  famous  of  athletic  sculptors. 


CHARIOTEER  AT  DELPHI 

We  know  him  best  from  his  Discobolus,  a  bronze  statue,  several 
marble  copies  of  which  are  extant.  As  a  piece  of  sculpture  can  rep- 
resent but   a  single   attitude,   it  must   tell   its  story  by   suggestion. 


SOCIETY  AND  CULTURE  233 

This  problem  Myron  was  the  first  to  solve.  His  Discobolus  stands 
"  at  the  top  of  the  swing,"  with  every  muscle  at  its  utmost  tension, 
the  body  wonderfully  contorted  yet  pleasing  in  its  naturalness  and 
harmony.  We  read  in  the  momentary  attitude  the  entire  story  of  the 
"  record-breaking  "  throw.  A  defect,  to  be  made  good  by  later  artists, 
is  the  calmness  of  the  face,  wholly  out  of  keeping  with  the  violent 
tension  of  the  body. 

The  Charioteer  of  Delphi.  With  this  piece  we  may  contrast 
another  work  of  the  age  by  an  unknown,  non-Athenian  artist  — 
the  bronze  statue  of  the  Charioteer  of  Delphi.  Associated  with  it 
originally  were  a  chariot  and  four.  The  quiet  dignity  of  bearing  and 
the  intelligent  face,  full  of  character  and  reserved  strength  indicate  no 
ordinary  jockey  but  a  man  fit  to  take  part  in  the  counsels  of  state; 
for  in  this  age  even  kings  did  not  despise  the  role  of  charioteer. 
It  is  undoubtedly  tlie  most  excellent  bronze  Greek  statue  in  exist- 
ence. 

The  spirit  of  the  age.  The  last  two  works  mentioned  represent 
contrasting  aspects  of  the  same  great  age  —  tremendous  force  kept 
well  in  hand  and  austere  dignity.  These  heroic  qualities,  subordinat- 
ing prettiness,  characterize  the  Marathonian  warriors  who  dominated 
the  generation.  Back  of  their  loud  utterance  and  stiff  stride  is  the 
stout  heart  and  the  high  purpose.  If  a  law  of  development  has 
brought  about  this  harmonious  relation  of  the  fine  arts  to  human  char- 
acter that  fact  can  only  be  taken  as  evidence  of  the  spontaneous  and 
organic  growth  of  Hellenic  civilization. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Beloch,  II,  1,  74-122;  Meyer,  III,  418-459;  Holm,  II,  ch.  xii;  Fowler  and 
Wheeler,  Handbook  of  Greek  Archccology,  96-144,  217-229;  Gardner,  Handbook 
of  Greek  Sculpture,  241-279 ;  Wdler,  Athens  and  its  Monuments;  Gardner,  E.  A., 
Ancient  Athens;  D'Ooge,  Acropolis  of  Athens;  Abbott,  Hellenica  (Rivington's, 
1880),  1-32;  Whibley,  L.,  Companion  to  Greek  Studies  (Cambridge  University 
Press,  1905),  105-111,  479-561;  Wright,  Greek  Literature,  119-125,  185-215; 
Capps,  Homer  to  Theocritus,  168-214;  Croiset,  Hist,  de  la  lift,  grecque,  II, 
ch.  vii.  III,  chs.  ii-v;  Sihler,  Testimonium  Aninice  (Stechert,   1908),  viii. 


■k  '   I  ( 


COINS:     ATHENA  AND  OWL 


CHAPTER  XIV 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 


(I)     IMPERIALISM 


I.     Political  and  Military 


461-445 


Athens,  now  independent  of  Sparta,  builds  up  a  new  alliance, 
462-1.  The  Spartan  insult  to  Athenian  arms  had  paralyzed  the 
Laconian  faction  within  Athens,  and  had  brought  to  the  front  the 
party  of  Themistocles  and  Ephialtes,  which  was  bent  on  making  for 
their  city  an  independent  career  in  Hellenic  politics.  Under  its  con- 
trol Athens  broke  from  the  Lacedaemonian  alliance,  and  leagued  her- 
self with  Argos,  a  power  unfriendly  to  Sparta.  Having  lived  under 
a  monarchy  till  after  the  Persian  war,  the  Argives  adopted  a  demo- 
cratic constitution  patterned  after  the  Athenian,  and  this  reform  pre- 
pared the  way  to  a  close  alliance.  Thessaly,  too,  whose  cities  were 
generally  governed  by  the  old  nobility,  joined  the  new  league. 

Alliance  with  Megara;  control  of  the  Corinthian  gulf,  459. 
Soon  afterward  the  democratic  party  in  Megara  got  the  upper  hand 
and  sought  of  Athens  protection  from  her  more  powerful  neighbor 
Corinth,  who  was  attempting  forcibly  to  annex  the  little  state. 
Athens  welcomed  the  proposal;  and  by  extending  her  protectorate 
over  Megaris,  acquired  a  commercial  position  on  the  Corinthian  gulf. 
The  arrangement  secured  for  the  new  ally  her  independence  and  easy 
access  to  the  Athenian  markets,  in  which  her  people  sold  their  garden 
products  and  their  manufactured  wares.     In  the  following  year,  when 

234 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 


235 


the  helots  at  Mount  Ithome  surrendered  with  the  privilege  of  with- 
drawing from  Peloponnese,  Athens  settled  them  at  Naupactus  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Corinthian  gulf.  She  was  ambitious  to  gain  over 
this  water  the  control  which  she  already  exercised  over  the  Saronic 
gulf.  Her  principal  motive  to  this  policy  was  the  further  develop- 
ment of  commerce  with  Italy  and  Sicily.^ 

War  between  Athens  and  the  Peloponnesians,  458-449.  The 
aggressions  of  Athens  in  these  and  in  other  quarters,  however,  stirred 
her  rivals  Corinth  and  Aegina  to  war.  These  two  states,  which  had 
once  enjoyed  a  commercial  and  naval  superiority  over  Athens,  now 
found  their  trade  choked  by  the  rise  of  Peiraeus  and  their  very  exist- 
ence threatened  by  Athenian  ambition.  Although  most  of  her  forces 
were  engaged  elsewhere,  Athens  was  able  to  overwhelm  the  combined 
navies  of  the  enemy,  to  besiege  Aegina,  and  to  defeat  a  Corinthian 
army  which  had  invaded  Megaris.  At  this  time  the  fear  of  a  gen- 
eral war  with   Peloponnese  determined   Athens  to  enter  vigorously 


ATHENB  AND  PEIRAEU 

SHOWING  LONG  WALLS        '^; 

a-    Sr 


(«f«.r*c«.,iprr. 


upon  the  construction  of  Long  Walls,  begun  by  Cimon,  to  connect 
the  city  with  Peiraeus."  They  ran  parallel  about  four  and  a  half 
miles  in  length  and  five  hundred  and  fifty  feet  apart,  thus  enclosing 
a  broad,  strongly  fortified  road,  from  Athens  to  her  chief  source  of 
supplies.^     After  this  completion  the  City  could  never  be  effectively 

1  Thuc.  i.  102  f. ;  Diod.  xi.  78  f. 

2Thuc.  i.   104-7  (cf.  143;   ii.   13);  Diod.  xi.  70,  78  f . ;   Plut.  Cim.   13. 

3  Thu'cydidesi  ii.  13,  seems  to  speak  of  a  third  wall,  extending  from  Phalerum  to  the 
city  and  named  accordingly  the  Phaleric  wall.  It  is  a  tenable  theory  that  originally  were 
built  this  Phaleric  wall  and  the  "North"  Wall;  that  some  years  afterward  a  "Middle" 
wall  parallel  to  the  "  North  "  wall  was  constructed,  thus  making  the  two  lines  mentioned 
in  the  text;  and  that  in  the  course  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  t-he  Phaleric  line  was  aban- 


236  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

besieged  so  long  as  her  fleet  held  the  sea.  The  enemy  might  invade 
Attica  and  destroy  property,  but  could  not  hope  to  c^rry  the  walls  by 
assault.  Meanwhile  the  Athenians,  dwelling  in  security,  could  subsist 
indefinitely  on  imported  food. 

Battle  of  Tanagra  and  of  Oenophyta,  457 ;  alliance  with  Boeo- 
tia,  Phocis,  and  Locris.  This  measure  brought  home  to  the  neigh- 
bors of  Athens,  more  forcibly  than  ever,  the  warlike  intentions  of 
the  democratic  city.  The  contagion  of  her  aggressive  spirit  spread 
to  her  friends  in  Boeotia  and  Phocis,  but  moved  her  rivals  to  more 
energetic  opposition.  The  Peloponnesian  league  introduced  an  army 
into  Boeotia,  to  encourage  the  aristocrats  of  that  country  in  their  re- 
sistance to  Athens,  and  especially  to  restore  the  Boeotian  league  under 
the  supremacy  of  Thebes,  who  through  Medism  had  lost  her  former 
leadership.  The  Athenians  marched  out  to  meet  this  army;  and  a 
fierce  battle  ensued  at  Tanagra.  Having  won  the  victory  the  Pelo- 
ponnesians  returned  home,  leaving  Thebes  to  defend  her  own  suprem- 
acy. Two  months  lather  the  Athenians  again  took  the  field,  overthrew 
a  Boeotian  army  at  Oenophyta,  and  made  themselves  masters  of  all 
Boeotia.  Although  in  most  towns  they  set  up  popular  governments 
it  seems  clear  that  in  some  cases  they  recognized  and  agreed  to  sup- 
port existing  oligarchies.  Phocis  was  already  an  ally.  The  Locrians 
were  coerced  into  the  league,  and  compelled  to  give  hostages.* 

New  Athenian  alliances  in  Pelponnese;  fall  of  Aegina,  457-6. 
About  the  same  time  Athens  conquered  some  territory  from  Corinth 
and  won  most  of  Achaea  to  her  alliance.  Already  Troezen,  in  which 
from  of  old  Ionian  blood  mingled  with  Dorian,  had  cast  her  lot  with 
the  kindred  city  that  seemed  destined  to  sweep  all  eastern  Hellas 
within  the  sphere  of  her  hegemony. 

After  a  siege  of  two  years  Aegina  surrendered,  dismantled  her 
walls,  and  entered  the  Delian  confederacy,  paying  a  tribute  of  thirty 
talents  a  year.^ 

Height  of  Athenian  power  on  land,  456.     The  Long  Walls  were 

doned.  Those  who  hold  this  view  find  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  locate  the  Phaleric  wall. 
The  hypothesis  in  which  it  was  made  to  connect  Athens  with  the  east  end  of  the  bay  of 
Phaleron  has  been  abandoned;  and  the  course  traced  by  Judeich  (map  p.  146),  though  an 
improvement  on  the  old  view,  still  seems  discordant  with  the  statement  of  Thucydides. 
Because  of  the  great  obscurity  of  the  whole  matter,  the  text  above  has  mentioned  only  the 
two  parallel  walls,  regarding  whose  existence  there  can  be  no  dispute;  cf.  Gardner,  Anc. 
Athens,  68-71. 

4  Thuc.  i.   107  f.;  Diod.  xi.  81-3;  Plut.  Ci»i.  17;  Per.   10;   Justin  iii.  6;  Paus.  i.  29;  Old 
Oligarch,  Const.  Ath.  3.  2;  Hicks  and  Hill,  nos.  28-30. 

5  Thuc.  i.  US;  Andoc.  Peace,  3.  Aegina;  Thuc.   i.   108;  Diod.  xi.   78;   Pind.  Pyth.  viii. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  237 

now  completed,  and  Athens  was  secure  from  every  attack  by  land 
and  sea.  The  imperial  ambition  of  Pericles  seemed  to  be  wholly 
justified.  In  a  period  of  five  years  Athens  had  built  up  a  continental 
federation  including  parts  of  Peloponnese,  extending  continuously 
from  the  Isthmus  to  Thermopylae,  and  embracing  intermittently  the 
inconstant  Thessalians."  Time  for  organizing  this  alliance  bade 
fair  to  create  a  power  on  land  superior  to  the  Peloponnesian  league. 

The  Egyptian  expedition,  459-4.  The  ambition  of  Athens,  how- 
ever, exceeded  her  strength.  While  in  need  of  all  her  forces  at  home, 
she  had  dared  to  continue  on  a  large  scale  her  operations  against 
Persia.  In  465  Xerxes  closed  his  inglorious  reign,  murdered  by  his 
grand  vizier,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  son,  Artaxerxes,  who  was  too 
good-natured  and  too  feeble  to  maintain  peace  throughout  the  empire. 
His  chief  peril  lay  in  the  revolt  of  Egypt.  Having  previously  sent  a 
fleet  of  two  hundred  ships  against  Cyprus,  Athens  diverted  a  squad- 
ron of  it  to  the  support  of  the  rebellion,  in  the  hope  of  striking  the 
king  at  the  weakest  point  in  his  defence,  and  of  gaining  control  of 
the  rich  Nile  valley.  After  several  years  of  campaigning  with  various 
fortune  in  the  neighborhood  of  Memphis,  the  armament  was  destroyed, 
and  few  of  the  crews  ever  returned  to  their  homes.  An  additional 
force  of  fifty  triremes  coming  too  late  to  their  relief,  suffered  the  same 
fate.  At  the  smallest  estimate  this  expedition  entailed  a  loss  of 
ninety  ships  with  most  of  their  crtws.  It  was  a  terrible  blow  to 
Athens;  and  yet  she  could  not  rest  till  she  had  attempted  to  retrieve 
the  disaster.^ 

Cimon's  expedition  to  Cyprus,  449;  his  death.  After  the  battle 
of  Tanagra,  in  which  a  hundred  companions  of  Cimon  had  proved 
their  loyalty  and  his  by  heroism  unto  death,  the  great  admiral  was 
recalled  from  exile.  In  450  he  negotiated  a  five  years'  truce  with 
Sparta,  and  the  next  year  led  a  fleet  of  two  hundred  ships  to  attempt 
once  more  the  liberation  of  Cyprus.  He  died  during  the  siege  of 
Citium;  but  afterward  his  troops  won  a  victory  by  land  and  sea.  It 
was  the  last  battle  in  the  forty-years'  war  between  Hellas  and  Persia. 
The  fleet  returned  home,  however,  without  gaining  any  permanent 
advantage.     The  death  of  Cimon  was  an  irreparable  loss.     He  had 

6  A  Thessalian  troop  sent  to  aid  Athens  at  Tanagra  deserted  to  the  enemy;  Thuc.  i.  107; 
cf.   111. 

7  Thuc.  i.  104,  109;  Diod.  xi.  71.  4;  74,  2;  Isoc.  Peace,  86;  at  first  40  ships  went  to 
Egypt,  and  afterward  50;  the  remainder  of  the  fleet  won  a  naval  victory  off  Phoenicia; 
Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  26. 


238  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

won  more  naval  battles  than  any  other  Greek;  under  his  command 
the  Athenians  attained  to  their  widest  dominion  and  to  the  height  of 
their  political  efficiency.® 

Peace  with  Persia,  448.  It  was  his  greatest  praise  that  after  his 
death  Athens  began  negotiations  with  the  Persian  king  for  peace. 
The  two  great  expeditions  recently  sent  to  the  eastern  Mediterranean 
had  brought  only  loss  and  there  seemed  no  hope  of  accomplishing 
anything  by  further  effort.  No  one  could  take  Cimon's  place,  and 
no  great  advocate  of  offensive  war  against  Persia  remained.  Evi- 
dently, too,  Pericles  began  to  recognize  the  limitations  on  the  capacity 
of  Athens,  and  preferred  to  husband  her  resources  for  the  more  imme- 
diate and  narrow  objects  of  his  Aegean  and  peninsular  policies. 
Before  his  state  could  vie  successfully  with  Persia  for  dominion  in  the 
eastern  Mediterranean,  it  was  necessary  for  her  to  build  up  a  broader 
and  stronger  empire  at  the  expense  of  her  near  neighbors.  The 
Athenians,  accordingly,  despatched  Callias,  once  the  husband  of 
Elpinice,  to  Susa  to  make  peace.  The  proud  king  refused  to  acknowl- 
edge formally  the  cession  of  his  Greek  provinces  in  Asia  Minor  to 
Athens.  He  consented,  however,  to  leave  them  undisturbed  by  land 
and  sea.  Athens,  on  her  part,  agreed  to  cease  her  attacks  upon  the 
possessions  of  the  Great  King.  Though  dissatisfied  with  the  slight 
concession,  the  Athenians  could  only  accept  the  terms.  True,  they 
were  no  longer  free  to  indulge  in  lucrative  wars  of  plunder  and  in 
piracy  upon  the  Persian  domain;  but  henceforth  they  had  unrestricted 
opportunity  for  commerce  with  Asia  and  Egypt,  which  had  once 
enriched  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  and  now  promised  larger  returns  than  ag- 
gressive wars  and  buccaneering.^ 

^  Battle  of  Coronea,  447;  fall  of  the  Athenian  continental 
league.  While  a  certain  advantage  came  to  Atliens  from  these 
eastern  arrangements,  she  was  unfortunate  in  the  continental  alliance 
recently  formed.  The  Boeotian  oligarchs  whom  Athens  had  expelled 
from  their  cities  returned  in  force  and  defeated  a  small  detachment 
of  Athenians,  taking  most  of  them  prisoners.  To  secure  their  release, 
Athens  agreed  to  evacuate  Boeotia.  This  action  entailed  the  loss  of 
Locris  and  Phocis.  Soon  afterward  Euboea  and  Megara  revolted, 
and  a  Peloponnesian  army  invaded  Attica.     Only  the  energy  and 

sThuc.  i.  112;  Plut.  Cini.  18  f . ;  Per.  10;  Andoc.  Peace,  4;  Diod.  xi.  86.  1;  xii.  2-4; 
rheopompus,  FHC.   I.  p.  293.  92;   Anthdl.  Palat.  vii.  296. 

9  Thuc.  viii.  56;  Diod.  xii.  4.  4-6;  Plut.  Cim.  13  (citing  the  document);  Isoc.  Paneg.  118 
ff. ;   Lycurg.  Leocr.   17;  Suidas  s.   Ktuwj'. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  239 

diplomacy  of  Pericles  snatched  his  city  from  this  extreme  peril. 
The  Spartan  king  withdrew,  perhaps  was  bribed;  Megara  returned  to 
the  Peloponnesian  league,  and  the  Euboic  revolt  was  crushed.^** 

The  Thirty  Years'  Peace,  446-5.  Pericles  and  his  colleagues 
saw  clearly  the  exhaustion  of  their  state.  The  disaster  in  Egypt,  the 
substantial  failure  of  the  great  expedition  to  Cyprus,  the  heavy  loss  in 
men  from  the  domestic  wars,  and  the  vast  expense  of  all  these  under- 
takings had  overstrained  the  ability  of  Athens  and  had  necessitated 
a  breathing  time."  In  445,  accordingly,  after  the  Euboic  campaign, 
the  Athenians  agreed  with  the  Peloponnesians  to  a  Thirty  Years' 
Peace  on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo.  Athens  gave  up  all  her  re- 
cently acquired  continental  allies,  retaining  only  Plataea  and  Naupac- 
tus.  On  the  other  hand,  she  received  an  acknowledgment  of  her 
maritime  empire.  Neither  party  was  to  interfere  with  the  allies  of 
the  other  but  each  remained  free  to  make  treaties  with  neutral  states. 
The  principle  of  the  "  open  door  "  was  established  for  their  com- 
mercial relations;  and  it  was  agreed  that  disputes  should  be  settled 
by  arbitration.  The  lack  of  a  clear  understanding  as  to  the  means 
and  method  of  arbitration  however  rendered  the  last-mentioned  article 
inoperative.  However  faulty  the  terms,  both  parties  to  the  treaty, 
freed  from  the  heavy  burden  of  the  conflict,  rejoiced  in  the  advan- 
tages of  mutual  commerce,  of  internal  recuperation  and  improvement 
promised  them  by  the  truce.^- 

II.     The  Athenian  Empire 

Completion  of  the  change  from  confederacy  to  empire,  about 
454.  As  the  grand  scheme  of  aggrandizement  at  the  expense  of 
Persia  and  of  Hellenic  neighbors  had  for  the  time  being  failed, 
Pericles  could  now  cherish  no  other  political  ambition  than  the  more 
thorough  consolidation  of  the  maritime  alliance  and  the  strengthen- 
ing of  the  city  with  a  view  to  future  efficiency.  The  policy  of  con- 
verting it  into  an  empire,  outlined  by  Aristeides  and  developed  by 
Cimon,  was  now  brought  to  completion.  One  by  one  the  states 
had  been  reduced  to  subjection,  till  only  Lesbos,  Chios,  and  Samos 
remained  free.     They  paid  no  tribute  but  furnished  naval  forces  for 

lOThuc.  i.  113  f. ;  Diod.  xii.  5-7,  22;  Plut.  Per.   18,  23;   Isoc.   Team,  28;   Andoc.  Peace,  9; 
Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  39;  IG.  II.   1675. 

11  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  26.  1;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  26. 

i2Thuc.  i.  35,  67,  78,  115,  140,  145;  Diod.  xii.  7;  Paus.  v.  23.  4;  Plut.  Per.  24. 


240  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  wars  waged  under  Athenian  leadership.  It  was  to  their  immediate 
interest  to  maintain  the  supremacy  of  Athens;  hence  they  willingly 
stood  guard  for  her  over  the  empire  and  even  favored  the  strengthen- 
ing of  her  power.  Thus  it  was  on  the  proposition  of  the  Samians 
that  the  treasury  was  transferred  from  Delos  to  Athens.  The  failure 
of  the  Egyptian  expedition  and  the  existence  of  war  with  the  Pelopon- 
nesians  made  this  change  a  measure  of  precaution  for  the  safety  of 
the  fund;  but  the  event  so  increased  the  preponderance  of  Athens  as 
to  mark,  better  then  than  any  other,  the  end  of  the  transformation 
from  confederacy  to  empire.  The  general  congress  which  had  long 
been  insignificant,  now  wholly  disappeared.  Athens  became  the 
centre  of  the  system,  and  Athena  took  the  place  of  Apollo  as  its 
guardian  deity.^^ 

Use  of  the  imperial  funds;  the  tribute  districts.  It  was  the  in- 
tention of  Pericles  to  fulfil  the  duty  of  Athens  toward  the  confederacy 
by  policing  the  Aegean  sea,  and  to  use  the  remainder  of  the  tributes 
for  purely  Athenian  objects,  including  the  payment  of  the  citizens  for 
civil  as  well  as  for  military  service  and  the  erection  of  public  works 
at  the  capital.  For  the  more  effective  collection  of  tributes  he  di- 
vided the  empire  into  five  districts:  Ionia,  the  Hellespont,  Thrace, 
Caria,  and  the  Islands.  The  levies  were  reapportioned  every  four 
years  by  Athenian  officials.  In  case  an  allied  state  felt  itself  un- 
justly assessed  it  could  only  petition  for  a  reconsideration.^* 

New  treaties  with  individual  states.  Generally  new  treaties 
were  made  one  by  one  with  the  individual  states  —  imposed  by  the 
Athenian  government  and  formally  accepted  by  the  allies.  In  Ery- 
thrae,  for  example,  a  garrison  was  established,  whose  commander  was 
virtually  governor  of  the  city.  Under  him  was  a  council  of  a  Hun- 
dred and  Twenty,  taken  annually  by  lot  from  the  citizens  above 
thirty  years  of  age.  All  the  Erythraeans  swore  to  be  faithful  to 
Athens  and  the  annual  council  took  oath  not  to  revolt  or  to  encourage 
rebellion.  The  courts  of  the  city  retained  jurisdiction  in  ordinary 
capital  cases  as  well  as  in  lesser  crimes.  The  city  was  to  send  sacri- 
ficial victims  to  the  Panathenaea;  and  any  Erythraean  who  chanced 
to  be  present  at  the  festival  was  to  have  a  share  of  the  offering.  The 
relations  were  to  be  not  merely  political,  but  religious  and  social. 

13  Beginning  of  the  transformation;  p.  202  f.  Lesbos,  Chios,  and  Samos;  Arist.  Atlt. 
Const.  24.  2;  Polit.  iii.  13.  19,  1284  a.  Removal  of  the  treasury,  454  or  slightly,  earlier; 
Diod.  xii.  38.  2;   Justin  iii.  6;  Plut.  Arist.  25;  Per.  12,  H.  Civ.  no.   74. 

14  Use  of  the  funds;  Plut.  Per.  12-14;  H.  Civ.  no.  105  with  introd.  and  notes.  Districts; 
H.  Civ.  no.  74:  HilL  Sources,  43  ff.,  156. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  241 

The  treatment  of  Chalcis  was  somewhat  more  severe.  The  Euboeans 
had  brought  Athens  into  great  danger  by  revolting  at  a  critical  mo- 
ment, and  had  wantonly  massacred  the  crew  of  an  Athenian  ship. 
The  worst  offenders,  including  the  knightly  class  in  Chalcis,  were 
expelled,  and  their  lands  occupied  by  Athenian  colonists.  The  Chal- 
cidians  were  treated  nearly  the  same  as  the  Erythraeans;  they  were 
deprived,  however,  of  the  right  to  try  capital  cases,  involving  dis- 
franchisement, exile  or  death.  Such  offences  had  to  be  brought  before 
the  Athenian  courts.  Other  states  were  still  more  restricted  in  their 
jurisdiction.  The  Athenian  colony  planted  in  Histiaea  had  to  send 
to  the  mother  city  all  cases  involving  more  than  ten  drachmas.^"' 

Extent  of  the  imperial  jurisdiction.  Ground  has  been  taken  by 
some  modern  scholars  that  these  restrictions  applied  not  only  to  crimes 
but  also  to  civil  suits  between  the  members  of  the  allied  community. 
So  much,  however,  can  not  be  proved  by  the  sources.  Such  a  re- 
quirement, too,  would  seem  an  intolerable  incubus  upon  business,  al- 
together inconsonant  with  the  Athenian  aim  to  foster  prosperity 
throughout  her  empire.  Opponents  of  the  Periclean  policy  naturally 
exaggerated  the  interference.  Even  on  the  most  favorable  interpre- 
tation, however,  the  number  of  cases  brought  to  Athens  was  great. 
Any  citizen  of  an  allied  state  was  liable  to  appear  before  an  Athenian 
court  as  plaintiff  or  defendant,  and  this  circumstance  tended  to  foster 
in  him  a  cringing  spirit.  "  He  is  compelled  to  behave  as  a  suppliant 
in  the  courts  of  justice,  and  to  grasp  the  hands  of  the  jurymen  as  they 
come  in.  For  this  reason  the  allies  find  themselves  more  and  more  in 
the  position  of  slaves  to  the  Athenians."  '^^  When  no  great  interest 
of  their  own  was  at  stake,  the  Athenian  jurors  were  impartial. 
Conscious  of  their  high  calling  as  imperial  judges,  they  loved  and 
followed  justice  for  its  own  sake.^'  On  the  common  ground  of 
Attic  law,  they  met  the  allies  as  their  equals;  ^*  in  the  case  of 
a  community  against  an  Athenian  official,  their  sympathies  gravitated 
inevitably  toward  the  former.  Thus  it  was  that  the  majority  received 
better  justice  from  Athens  than  formerly  they  had  from  their  own  local 
courts:  the  masses  were  assured  protection  from  their  oligarchs. ^^ 
The  masters  of  the  empire  were  strict  in  collecting  tribute  and  severe 

isErythrae;   H.   Civ.  no.   71.     Chalcis;   no.   72;   Plut.   Per.  23.    Other  states,  as  Histiaea, 
were  still  more  restricted;  IG.  I.  28-30;  suppl.  p.   12. 
16  ff.  Civ.  p.  226  f.  (Old  Oligarch). 
nop.  cit.  p.  217  (Aristoph.). 
18  Thuc.   i.   77;   cf.   iii.   44. 
]  n  Thuc.  viii.   48. 


242  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

in  punishment  of  rebellion  but  gentle  in  their  treatment  of  the  loyal 
"  To  maintain  our  rights  against  equals,  to  be  politic  with  superiors 
and  moderate  toward  inferiors  is  the  way  of  safety."  -° 

Imperial  weights,  measures,  and  coins.  For  commercial  reasons, 
and  quite  as  much  through  pride  in  their  imperial  rule,  the  Athenians 
forced  their  money  as  well  as  their  weights  and  measures,  upon  the 
allies,  whose  local  mints  were  restricted  to  small  denominations. 
For  Athens  and  the  islands  the  standard  was  still  silver;  and  the 
denomination  most  in  use  was  the  four-drachma  piece  (about  seventy- 
three  cents)  with  its  archaic  head  of  Athena  and  the  owl.  an  honest 
though  inartistic  toin,  as  acceptable  throughout  the  civilized  world  as 
French  or  British  gold  is  today.  In  the  Anatolian  cities  the  standard 
was  the  electrum  stater,  usually  worth  twenty-five  silver  drachmas; 
for  coins  of  this  metal  were  essential  to  trade  with  the  interior  and 
the  Pontic  region.-^  The  extension  of  Attic  weights,  measures,  and 
coins,  along  with  the  Attic  language  and  laws,  pointed  to  the  ultimate 
consolidation  of  the  empire  in  a  single  state.  This  end,  however, 
could  only  have  been  reached  through  the  long  continuance  of  the 
empire. 

Lack  of  representation  in  the  government  of  the  empire.  Cit- 
izenship in  the  leading  city  no  ally  demanded,  so  far  as  we  know; 
and  had  it  been  offered,  few  perhaps  would  have  accepted.  In  far 
later  time  the  wholesale  extension  of  the  Roman  franchise  to  the 
Mediterranean  world  did  not  prove  an  unmixed  good.  The  funda- 
mental defect  in  the  Athenian  imperial  system,  however,  is  sufficiently 
obvious  to  us:  the  allies  were  given  no  hope  of  ever  acquiring  rep- 
resentation in  the  central  government,  but  were  convinced  that  Athens 
was  bent  on  forever  maintaining  her  place,  not  as  president,  but  as 
master.  Hence  the  political  leaders  of  the  allied  states,  with  scarcely 
an  exception,  seized  every  opportunity  to  revolt.  It  was  this  weak- 
ness, accordingly,  that  made  the  system  short-lived.  As  was  formerly 
noticed,  however,  the  concentration  of  political  power  in  the  leading 
city  was  due  to  the  allies  even  more  than  to  the  Athenians. -- 

Colonization  of  the  empire.  The  policy  of  colonizing  vacant 
lands  of  the  empire  with  Athenians,  begun  by  Cimon,  continued  under 
Pericles.     Particularly  the  authors  of  rebellion  were  expelled,  and 

20Thuc.  V.  111.  ..     ■ 

21  Athenian  decree  for  the  regulation  of  the  imperial  weights,  measures,  and  coins,  before 
420;  Ditt.   I.  no.  87;   cf.   Gardner,  P.,  JHS.  XXXIII.   147-88;   Aristoph.  Birds,  1040  f. 

22  P.  202. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  243 

their  lands  occupied  by  Athenians.  Colonies  were  established  in 
Naxos,  Andros,  and  Sinope  —  on  the  Black  Sea  —  and  elsewhere. 
The  earlier  settlement  in  Chersonese  Pericles  enlarged  and  fortified. 
"  By  these  means  he  relieved  the  state  of  numerous  idle  agitators, 
assisted  the  needy,  and  overawed  the  allies  by  placing  his  colonists 
near  tliem  to  watch  their  behavior."  -^  Under  his  administration  at 
least  six  thousand  Athenians  were  thus  disposed  of.  The  members 
of  the  colony,  remaining  Athenian,  formed  a  self-governing  com- 
munity. Relieved  of  service  in  the  army,  they  performed  garrison 
duty.  The  allies  regarded  these  colonies  as  an  encroachment  upon 
their  territory  and  a  menace  to  such  freedom  as  they  still  retained.-* 
Though  a  temporary  grievance,  the  colonial  policy  tended  to  Atticise 
the  allies  and  had  time  allowed,  would  have  served  as  a  powerful 
factor  in  consolidating  the  empire  into  a  single  state. 

Material  advantages  brought  by  the  empire.  Athens  brought 
to  these  subjects  the  blessings  of  peace  and  protection.  Under  the 
aegis  of  a  powerful  navy  the  ships  of  her  humblest  ally  could  safely 
plough  the  sea  to  Egypt  and  Tyre,  to  Pontus,  or  to  the  Pillars  of 
Heracles.  Through  importations  the  luxuries  of  other  lands  became 
common  comforts.  "  The  choice  products  of  Italy  and  Sicily,  of 
Cyprus  and  Egypt  and  Lydia,  of  Pontus  and  Pelopomiese  or  wher- 
ever else  it  may  be,  are  all  swept  into  one  centre,  through  the  sole 
means  of  the  maritime  empire."  "^  During  a  period  of  sixty-seven 
years  the  profound  quiet  was  disturbed  by  no  invader  and  in  most 
states,  by  no  domestic  war.  Skilled  industry  flourished;  farms  were 
well  stocked  and  fields  well  tilled;  -^  in  no  period  of  the  world's  his- 
tory has  this  region  developed  so  great  a  prosperity. 

The  feelings  of  the  allies.  Under  these  circumstances  the  feelings 
of  the  allies  toward  Athens  mingled  good  with  ill.  It  was  a  griev- 
ance to  carry  their  cases  to  Athens,  and  cringe  like  suppliants  before 
the  common  men  who  composed  the  juries;  a  hardship  to  pay  the  an- 
nual tribute,  although  that  was  far  less  than  would  have  been  the 
cost  of  defending  themselves  however  ineffectively.  They  felt  sorely, 
too,  the  presence  of  Athenian  garrisons,  and  they  cherished  the  genu- 
ine Hellenic  love  of  sovereign  independence  for  their  cities.  Yet 
positive  antipathy  was  limited  to  the  old  families  whom  the  empire 

23  Plut.   Per.   11. 

24  Plut.   Per.   11,   19  f.     Decree  for  founding  a  colony;   H.   Civ.   no.   73.     Lemnos,   Imbros, 
and  Scynos  were  colonized  before  the  Periclean  age;  p.  358,  359. 

25  H.  Civ.  p.  229  (Old  Oligarch);  cf.  Thuc.  ii.  38. 

26  Cf.  Thuc.  viii.  24. 


244  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

had  robbed  of  their  political  ascendancy  and  the  scheming  rriarket- 
place  politicians  who  saw  in  revolt  their  way  to  leadership  in  their 
states.  The  manufacturers  and  merchants,  who  paid  the  bulk  of  the 
tribute,  must  have  been  satisfied  with  the  economic  advantages  as- 
sured them  by  Athenian  rule;  and  the  multitude  in  every  state  were 
loyal.  "  At  present,"  said  a  speaker  in  the  Athenian  assembly,  "  the 
popular  party  are  everywhere  our  friends;  they  either  do  not  join  with 
the  oligarchs,  or  if  compelled  to  do  so,  they  are  always  ready  to 
turn  against  the  authors  of  the  revolt;  hence  in  going  to  war  with  a 
rebellious  state,  you  have  the  multitude  on  your  side."  -'  Paradoxi- 
cal as  at  first  view  it  may  seem,  the  empire,  if  we  reckon  by  majori- 
ties, was  a  more  voluntary  system  than  had  been  the  confederacy; 
it  had  become  an  organization,  not  only  for  protection  from  foreign 
enemies,  but  for  the  maintenance  of  democracy. 

The  anti-imperialists  (Little  Athenians).  The  imperial  aims 
of  Pericles  roused  opposition  at  Athens.  The  banishment  of  Cimon 
had  disorganized  the  conservatives  but  after  the  peace  with  Persia, 
his  kinsman  Thucydides,  son  of  Melesias,  gathered  up  the  remnants 
of  the  party  with  a  view  to  checking  the  schemes  of  Pericles.  "  He 
did  not  allow  the  notables  to  mix  themselves  up  with  the  people  in  the 
public  assembly,  as  they  had  been  wont  to  do,  so  that  their  dignity 
was  lost  in  the  masses;  but  he  collected  them  into  a  separate  body, 
and  by  thus  concentrating  their  strength  was  able  to  use  it  to  counter- 
balance that  of  the  other  party."  -®  Though  undistinguished  in  war, 
he  was  a  better  orator  than  Cimon  and  a  far  more  expert  politician. 
He  charged  against  Pericles  the  negotiations  with  Persia  as  traitorous 
to  Hellas,  the  tyranny  over  the  allies,  the  transfer  of  the  treasury  to 
Athens  and  its  use  in  decking  out  the  city  like  a  vain  woman.  His 
party  began  to  call  Pericles  a  New  Peisistratus  and  to  denounce  him 
as  a  real  tyrant.  One  of  the  comic  poets  asserted  that  the  Athenians 
delivered  into  his  hands:  — 

The  tribute  from  the  towns,  the  towns  themselves, 
The   city-walls,    to  build  or   destroy, 
The  right  of  making  either  peace  or  war. 
And  all  the  wealth  and  produce  of  the  land.^^ 

When,  however,  the  conservatives  appealed  to  ostracism,  they  were 

27  Thuc.   iii.  47;  cf.  iv.   123;  viii.,  9  64;  H.  Civ.  p.  235  (Old  Oligarch). 

28  Plut.   Per.    11;   cf.   8,    12;    Arist.   Const.   Ath.  28;    Androtion,   FHG.    I.   p.   376.   43;    Phi- 
lochorus,  op.  cit.  399.  95. 

29  Telecleides,  in  Plut.  Per.  16. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  245 

rebuked  by  the  banishment  of  their  leader,  and  again  were  utterly 
disorganized.  Pericles  was  therefore  left  unimpeded  in  his  manage- 
ment of  the  empire.^'' 

The  revolt  of  Samos,  440-39.  It  was  still  no  easy  task  to  hold 
the  empire  together.  Shortly  after  this  ostracism  trouble  came  from 
Samos,  the  state  which  had  been  among  the  first  to  enter  the  Confed- 
eracy and  which  had  most  strenuously  upheld  the  Athenian  power. 
It  had  gone  to  war  with  Miletus  over  the  possession  of  Priene, —  a 
remarkable  circumstance  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Miletus  was  depen- 
dent. The  latter  complained  to  Athens  and  Samos  refused  arbitra- 
tion, but  revolted  under  the  instigation  of  the  oligarchs.  The  Per- 
sians offered  the  aid  of  a  Phoenician  fleet;  Byzantium  revolted  in 
sympathy;  the  existence  of  the  empire  came  into  extreme  peril.  But 
the  Athenians  met  the  crisis  with  extraordinary  promptness.  Pericles 
besieged  the  island,  bringing  newly  invented  siege  engines  to  bear 
upon  the  walls.  After  nine  months  it  surrendered,  and  received  the 
punishment  formerly  meted  out  to  Naxos  and  Thasos.  The  empire 
emerged  from  the  crisis  more  strongly  cemented  than  before.  The 
slain  were  given  a  magnificent  funeral;  and  as  Pericles  descended 
from  the  speaker's  stand  after  delivering  the  eulogy  on  the  dead,  the 
women  of  Athens  crowned  him  with  wreaths  and  ribbons  like  a  vic- 
torious athlete,  so  highly  did  they  value  his  service  in  that  momentous 
campaign. ^^ 

The  Black  sea  region.  The  happy  issue  of  this  trouble  left 
Pericles  free  to  extend  the  prestige  and  power  of  Athens  to  the  coasts 
of  the  Pontus,'  Sailing  thither  with  a  large,  splendidly  equipped 
fleet,  he  awakened  in  the  native  princes  a  feeling  of  respect  for  Athens 
and  won  to  her  the  allegiance  of  several  Greek  cities  in  that  region, 
whose  names  appear  thereafter  in  the  lists  of  contributory  states. 
On  the  south  shore  he  planted  Athenian  colonies.  Doubtless,  how- 
ever, the  chief  object  was  to  promote  closer  relations  with  a  region 
on  which  Athens  depended  more  and  more  for  supplies  —  for  wheat 
and  fish,  for  ship  timber,  metals,  dyes,  hides,  slaves,  and  other  com- 
modities. Not  merely  the  products  of  the  sea  and  its  coasts  were  thus 
brought  to  Athens  and  her  neighbors  but  also  those  of  the  distant 
interior;  for  from  Olbia  on  the  northern  Pontic  shore  extended  a  great 
caravan  route  northeastward  to  the  Ural  mountains  and  thence  toward 

30  Plut.  Per.  14;  Ditt.  I.  no.  66. 

»XThuQ.  i.  115-7;  Diod-  xii.  27  f. ;  Plut.  Per.  25-8. 


246  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  rising  sun  through  central  Asia  to  the  borders  of  China.     From 
these  regions  were  imported  furs,  drugs,  and  gold.^^ 

The  founding  of  Thurii,  446.  Still  earlier,  Pericles,  following, 
the  path  marked  out  by  Themistocles,  and  adding  political  to  com-- 
mercial  relations  with  the  West,  had  begun  to  contract  alliances  with 
the  states  of  Sicily  and  Magna  Graecia.  Great  expectations  centred 
in  the  colony  of  Thurii  sent  out  by  him  to  the  territory  of  Sybaris, 
a  city  which  had  been  totally  destroyed  by  the  men  of  Croton.  The 
country  was  marvellously  fertile,  and  Pericles  may  well  have  hoped 
to  make  the  new  city  the  great  commercial  depot  of  Athens  in  the 
West.  In  composition,  however,  Thurii  was  a  pan-Hellenic  founda- 
tion, to  which  the  Peloponnesian  states,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Athen- 
ian empire,  contributed  settlers.  Here,  in  fact,  was  a  scheme  of 
Pericles  by  which  he  hoped  to  coin  Hellenic  acknowledgment  of  the 
leadership  of  Athens. 

A  model  city.  Thurii  was  to  be  in  every  sense  a  modern  city. 
Hipppdamus,  a  famous  civil  engineer  from  Miletus,  laid  it  out  in 
broad,  straight  streets,  crossing  one  another  at  right  angles.  Its 
laws  "  were  compiled  by  the  sage  Protagoras,  who  collected  what  was 
best  in  those  of  ancient  Locri,  of  tlie  various  Chalcidian  cities,  of  the 
cities  of  Peloponnese  and  Crete,  and  finally  of  Athens."  Among 
these  laws  was  a  most  enlightened  provision  for  the  compulsory  edu- 
cation of  children  in  schools  supported  by  the  state.  So  far  as  we 
know,  this  was  the  first  body  of  law  that  rested  upon  a  basis  broader 
than  the  customs  and  ideas  of  a  single  state;  this  character  made  it 
the  germ  of  the  "  law  of  nations,"  and  of  the  "  natural  law  "  after- 
ward developed  by  the  Romans.  The  cultural  significance  of  the 
colony,  therefore,  was  extraordinary.  The  non-Athenian  element, 
however,  dominated;  and  as  the  antipathy  between  Peloponnese 
and  Athens,  between  Dorians  and  lonians,  grew  bitter,  the  colony 
was  not  only  lost  to  its  mother-city  but  suffered  grievously  from  civil 
strife.  Furthermore,  the  political  complications  of -Athens  with  the 
West  led  ultimately  to  her  interference  in  Sicilian  affairs,  and  to  a 
disaster  of  which  the  Periclean  Hellenes  could  not  have  even 
dreamed.  ^^ 

32  Plut.  Prr.  20;  Hdt.  iv.  21.  9;  Meyer,  Gesch.  d.  Alt.  III.  106  ff.  and  map  at  end  of  vol- 
ume. Colonies  at  Sinope  and  Amisus;  Plut.  Per.  20;  Theopomp.  FBG.  I.  p.  312.  202. 
Also  Astacus  on  the  Propontis;   Diod.   ,xii.   34.   S:   change  Keravov  to  " XaraKOv- 

33  Treaty  with  Scgesta,  454-3;  IG.  I.  suppl.  p.  58.  no.  22  k  (cf.  Diod.  xi.  86.  2  f.");  p.  139. 
no.  20;  Scala,  no.  57.  With  Rhegium  and  Leontini,  433-2;  Hicks  and  Hill  no.  51  f. ;  Scala, 
no.   67  f.    Intimate  relations  with  Naples;   Timaeus,  FHG.   I.   p.   218.   99;   Strabo  v,   i   7- 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 


247 


Thurii;  Diod.  xii.  10  ff . ;  Strabo  vi.  1,  13  f.,  //.  Civ.  p.  527  (Dion.  Hal.  Lys.);  Plut.  Per. 
11;  X  Oral.  835  d;  Hesych.  s.  'liriroSafiov  pefirjcis-  The  date  446  (Diod.)  is  preferred  by 
Pais,  Anc.  Italy,  330  f. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  346-367,  328-385;  Holm,  II,  chs.  xiv,  xvii-xix;  Grote,  chs.  xlv  (latter 
part),  xlvi;  Beloch,  II,  chs.  v.  vi;  Busolt,  III,  296-438,  518-540;  Meyer,  III, 
574-624,  IV,  3-84;  Freeman,  History  of  Sicily,  III,  ch.  viii;  Abbott,  Pericles 
and  the  Golden  Age  of  Athens  (Putnam,  1897),  Grant,  Greece  in  the  Age  of 
Pericles  (Scribner,  1897);  Greenidge,  Handbook  of  Greek  Const.  Hist.,  189- 
204;  Gilbert,  Greek  Const.  Ant.,  416-435;  Ferguson,  Greek  Imperialism 
(Houghton,  Mifflin,  1913),  65-78;  Gardner,  P.,  History  of  Ancient  Coinage 
(Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1910),  ch.  xiv. 


ATHENIAN  WEIGHT:     PUBLIC  STANDARD 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 

/        (II)     THE  ATHENIAN  DEMOCRACY 

Democracy  the  correlate  of  imperialism.  A  necessary  correlate 
of  the  foreign  and  imperial  policy  of  Athens  during  this  age  was 
that  her  government  should  continue  its  progress  toward  absolute 
democracy;  for  it  was  the  masses  who  were  chiefly  interested  in  the 
plunder  of  conquest,  the  extension  of  the  empire,  and  the  concentra- 
tion of  jurisdiction  in  the  hands  of  the  popular  courts. 

The  popular  assembly  (ecclesia).  The  essential  institution  of 
government  was  the  popular  assembly,  embracing  theoretically  and 
potentially  all  adult  male  citizens,  practically  all  with  the  leisure 
and  inclination  to  attend.^  The  government  did  not  as  yet  pay 
for  attendance;  hence  the  masses  were  present  but  rarely,  on  occa- 
sions of  especial  interest  or  excitement.  During  the  Peloponnesian 
war  the  number  seldom  reached  five  thousand  and  must  usually  have 
been  far  smaller,  though  the  patriot  considered  it  his  duty  to  be 
present  and  to  take  an  interest  in  public  affairs.     One  complains:  — 

Never  in  my  lifetime,  man  or  boy, 
Was  I  so  vexed  as  at  this  present  moment; 
To  see  the  Pnyx,  at  this  time  of  the  morning, 
Quite  empty,  when  the  Assembly  should  be  fuU.^ 

Functions  of  the  assembly.  From  the  time  of  Pericles  there 
were  four  stated  meetings  every  prytany,  besides  extraordinary  ses- 
sions. Certain  stated  meetings  were  for  special  purposes.  The  first 
assembly  in  each  prytany  reviewed  the  conduct  of  magistrates,  sus- 
pending from  office  any  one  accused  of  malversation  and  handing  him 
over  to  a  popular  court  for  trial.  This  was  an  extreme  use  of  the 
principle  of  the  "  recall."  In  case  of  acquittal  he  resumed  his  of- 
fice. Under  these  circumstances  the  magistrates,  deprived  of  all  in- 
dependence, were  limited  strictly  to  executing  the  will  of  the  assem- 

1  Xen.  Mem.  iii.  7.  6;   Plat.  Protag.  319  c. 

2  Aristoph.  Acharnians,  (opening). 

248 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  249 

bly.  The  same  meeting  considered  the  grain  supply  and  the  defence 
of  the  country.  "  The  second  assembly  of  the  prytany  is  assigned 
to  suppliants;  and  at  this  meeting  any  one  is  free,  on  depositing  the 
suppliant's  olive  branch,  to  speak  to  the  people  on  any  matter, 
public  or  private.  The  two  other  meetings  arc  occupied  with  the 
remaining  subjects;  and  the  laws  require  them  to  deal  with  three 
questions  connected  with  religion,  three  relating  to  heralds  and  em- 
bassies, and  three  on  secular  subjects."  ^ 

Restricted  by  the  laws  and  by  the  Five  Hundred;  experience 
and  self-restraint.  The  principle  was  accepted  that  not  the  peo- 
ple but  the  laws  governed.  Under  the  statutes  of  the  fathers  the 
assembly  deliberated  on  the  question  proposed  and  all  had  a  right  to 
speak,  whether  officers  or  private  persons.  The  measures  were  initi- 
ated by  the  Five  Hundred,  generally  on  the  advice  of  a  leading 
statesman;  and  the  people  decided.  "  If  few  of  us  are  originators," 
says  Pericles,  "  we  are  all  sound  judges  of  a  policy."  ^  Aristotle 
explains:  "Any  member  of  the  assembly  taken  separately  is  cer- 
tainly inferior  to  the  wise  man.  The  state,  however,  is  made  up  of 
many  individuals;  and  as  a  feast  to  which  all  the  guests  contribute 
is  better  than  a  banquet  furnished  by  one  man,  so  the  multitude  is  a 
better  judge  of  many  things  than  an  individual."  '''  Excepting  when 
the  people  were  violently  moved  by  fear,  hatred,  or  other  like  pas- 
sion, the  principle  here  enunciated  undoubtedly  held  true,  especially 
in  a  body  of  men  more  experienced  in  public  affairs,  and  more  ap- 
preciative of  their  responsibility,  than  could  be  any  equally  large 
gathering  of  citizens  in  a  modem  state. 

The  council  of  Five  Hundred.  The  theory  that,  under  the  laws, 
the  people  themselves  were  sovereign  —  that  "  the  whole  folk  year  by 
year,  in  parity  of  service,  is  our  king,"  ^ —  could  not  be  put  into  strict 
practice.  The  actual  administration  had  to  be  trusted  mainly  to 
a  smaller,  more  wieldy  body  —  the  council  of  Five  Hundred,  or- 
ganized in  ten  groups  of  "  foremen,"  as  previously  explained."  These 
groups  served  in  rotation  as  committees  for  governmental  control 
and  for  initiating  decrees  affecting  the  administration.  Much  of 
the  supervisory  power,  formerly  wielded  by  the  Areopagites,  was 
transferred  to  this  council,  462.     It  examined,  accordingly,  the  fitness 

»  Arist.  Const.  Atli.  43. 

4  Thuc.   ii.  40. 

5  Arist.  PoHt.  iii.   15.   7,  1286  a. 

6  Euripides,  Suppliants,  406-8. 

7  P.   120. 


250  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

of  candidates  for  office,  arranged  for  their  election  or  sortition,  and 
cooperated  with  them  in  most  of  their  duties.  It  kept  a  strict  watch 
over  them  —  especially  over  those  who  handled  money,  permitting 
no  money  to  be  received  or  disbursed  apart  from  its  supervision.  For 
a  time  it  had  full  power  to  punish  for  misuse  of  office.  Furthermore 
the  council  superintended  the  construction,  repair  and  preservation 
of  triremes,  or  other  vessels  of  war,  and  of  public  buildings,  in- 
spected the  horses  belonging  to  the  state,  revised  the  list  of  the  cav- 
alry, and  attended  to  a  great  multitude  of  other  duties.*  The  most 
noteworthy  of  its  administrative  functions,  inherited  from  the  council 
of  the  Areopagus,  was  its  guardianship  of  the  constitution,  involving 
the  right  of  exercising  in  crises  the  power  of  life  and  death  over 
both  officials  and  private  citizens.^  Far  from  giving  rein  to  license 
and  lawlessness,  the  Periclean  democracy  sternly  enforced  the  moral 
discipline  to  which  the  people  had  grown  accustomed  under  aristo- 
cratic rule. 

The  popular  supreme  court  (heliaea).  On  one  side  the  as- 
sembly was  checked  by  the  Five  Hundred,  as  it  was  limited  to  the 
program  drawn  up  by  the  prytaneis.  On  another  side  its  action  was 
as  effectually  controlled  by  the  heliaea  (popular  court).  The  germ 
of  this  institution  had  existed  from  the  time  of  Solon;  but  the  ab- 
sence of  pay  for  service,  reinforcing  the  general  aristocratic  spirit  of 
the  constitution,  had  established  the  well-to-do  in  virtual  control. 
Originally  it  was  a  court  of  appeal  from  the  decisions  of  the  archons, 
who  were  men  of  experience  and  ability,  chosen  for  their  special  fit- 
ness from  the  two  wealthiest  classes.  The  decline  of  the  archonship, 
especially  through  the  introduction  of  sortition  for  filling  the  office, 
together  with  the  general  progress  of  democracy,  continually  in- 
creased the  importance  of  the  jurors.  The  age  of  Pericles  further 
democratized  the  archonship  by  opening  it  to  the  zeugitae.^"  Hence- 
forth any  respectable  citizen,  above  the  thetic  census,  however  mean 
his  ability,  was  eligible.  Because  of  their  lack  of  knowledge  of  the 
law  and  their  general  mediocrity,  the  archons  could  no  longer  act  as 
judges,  but  became  mere  clerks,  with  the  routine  duty  of  preparing 
cases  for  trial,  and  with  a  nominal  presidency  of  the  jury,  as  will  be 
explained  below. 

8  p.  119  f.     Arist.  Const.  Ath.  44-9. 

9  Op.  cit.  45. 

10  P.  108,  113;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  26.  2.  Although  thereafter  thetes  by  false  pretenses 
sometimes  obtained  the  office,  it  was  usually  filled  by  men  of  traditional  respectability 
had  considerable  wealth;  p.  259. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  251 

Democratization  of  the  law  courts  (dicasteria).  Meanwhile 
with  the  gathering  of  the  people  into  the  city  the  attondance  on  the 
juries  naturally  increased.  Finally  after  the  overthrow  of  the  council 
of  the  Areopagus,  462,  in  the  same  year  Pericles  carried  a  measure  for 
the  payment  of  jurors,  probably  at  the  rate  of  two  obols  a  day.  This 
act  completely  democratized  the  institution,  as  it  enabled  the  poorest 
to  attend  regularly  and  in  large  numbers. ^^ 

The  introduction  of  pay  should  not  be  too  hastily  branded  as  an 
encouragement  to  idleness;  for  the  able-bodied  generally  preferred 
more  remunerative  and  less  confining  employment.  The  typical 
juror  was  an  old  man,  whose  days  of  manual  labor  were  past.  He  had 
served  the  state  as  a  hoplite  or  oarsman,  and  was  now  drawing  his 
juror's  fee  in  lieu  of  a  pension,  for  which  however  he  had  to  sit 
judging  day  by  day  from  early  mom  till  night.  Many  had  country 
homes  near  Athens;  and  in  a  comedy  of  Aristophanes  we  see  them 
before  daybreak  trudging,  lantern  in  hand,  along  the  road  to  the 
city,  to  be  at  court  on  time.^- 

Organization  of  the  courts;  reasons  for  the  large  juries. 
There  were  now  six  thousand  jurors,  drawn  annually  by  lot,  six 
hundred  from  each  tribe.  Applicants  for  the  service  had  to  be 
Athenians  in  the  full  exercise  of  their  rights  and  at  least  thirty  years 
of  age.  At  the  beginning  of  the  year  they  were  put  under  oath  to 
give  their  decisions  according  to  law,  and  in  the  absence  of  a  statute 
covering  the  case,  according  to  their  best  judgment  and  conscience. 
Normally  they  were  divided  into  juries  of  five  hundred  and  one, 
though  we  occasionally  hear  of  smaller  and  larger  panels.  As  the 
decision  was  by  majority  vote,  the  odd  number  was  to  prevent  a  tie. 
The  most  obvious  ground  for  the  large  jury  was  to  make  bribery 
difficult.  Nevertheless  toward  the  end  of  the  century  the  mischief 
crept  in,  whereupon  the  Athenians  devised  a  complicated  system  of 
choosing  jurors  and  of  assigning  them  to  the  several  cases,  with  the 
result  that  a  man  could  not  ascertain  on  what  case  he  was  to  sit  till 
he  had  entered  the  court-room.  This  precaution  substantially  elim- 
inated bribery.^ ^  The  large  number,  furthermore,  was  to  provide 
against  intimidation.  The  great  nobles  felt  themselves  above  the 
laws,  and  would  have  ridden  rough-shod  over  a  jury  of  the  modem 
type  but  dared  not  contemn  so  numerous  an  assembly  of  citizens. 

11  Arist.   Polit.  li.   12.   4,   1274  a. 
■.i2iI:XiV.  p;  213  .f.  iWasps  214  ff.).  . 
13  Arist.   Const.  Ath.  27.  5,  63. 


252  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  Athenians  felt,  too,  that  no  smaller  number  could  adequately 
represent  the  wishes  and  interests  of  the  whole  people,  who,  if  democ- 
racy was  to  be  more  than  a  pretense,  must  needs  exercise  judicial  as 
well  as  legislative  and  executive  functions.  Pleaders  addressed  the 
jurors  as  citizens  and  democrats,  and  in  truth  the  courts  were  the 
stronghold  of  popular  government.  To  these  considerations  of  the 
Athenians  themselves  we  may  add  the  fact,  important  in  cultural  his- 
tory, that  these  large  gatherings  of  men  of  inherent  artistic  tempera- 
ment, who  in  the  assembly,  the  theatre,  and  the  public  festivals  had 
nursed  their  taste  in  beautiful  prose  and  verse,  made  possible  the  de- 
velopment of  a  judicial  oratory  of  universal  and  eternal  literary  value. 

These  positive  advantages  were  counterbalanced  by  defects.  A 
large  audience  is  more  subject  to  passion  than  a  small  group  of  men. 
An  Athenian  jury  was  often  moved  by  political  feeling;  and  especially 
when  the  accused  was  known  to  entertain  anti-popular  sentiments,  he 
was  less  certain  to  obtain  justice.  This  defect,  however,  was  but 
relative;  the  courts  as  constituted  undoubtedly  dispensed  fair  judg- 
ments to  a  far  larger  proportion  of  the  citizens  than  would  have  been 
possible  under  any  other  arrangement.  From  the  juristic  point  of 
wiew  the  system  was  defective  in  that  it  admitted  neither  of  judges  nor 
of  a  lawyer  class.  The  court  was  a  jury  without  a  judge  —  under  a 
mere  chairman  who  possessed  neither  the  knowledge  nor  the  right  to 
interpret  the  law  or  to  guide  the  proceedings.  Every  man  had  to  plead 
his  own  case.  He  might  in  need  have  recourse  to  a  professional 
rhetorician,  who  had  a  smattering  of  legal  knowledge,  and  who,  for  a 
fee,  would  write  his  speech  for  him.  Under  these  circumstances 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  case  law  or  precedent,  i  Hence  there 
could  be  no  consistency  in  the  decisions.  Attic  law  was  simpler  than 
is  that  of  any  modern  state;  and  it  was  assumed  that  every  citizen  was 
sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  code  —  but  in  vain.  The  jurors  were 
disposed  to  pay  little  heed  to  the  letter  of  the  law,  and  to  estimate  in- 
stead the  character  of  the  accused  and  his  value  to  the  state.  Has 
he  served  the  community  well,  they  asked,  and  if  acquitted  will  he 
continue  to  render  good  service?  However  childish  it  may  seem  to 
us,  this  attitude  of  mind  had  its  advantages  in  a  small  community, 
in  which  the  jurors  were  personally  acquainted  with  the  litigants. 

It  has  been  urged,  too,  by  modem  critics  that  the  system  fostered 
in  the  Athenians  a  litigious  spirit  and  a  quarrelsomeness  which  shows 
itself  even  in  the  drama.     However  that  may  be,  it  was  an  institution 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  253 

well  suited  to  the  Athenian  temperament;  and  the  typical  old  juror 
was  thoroughly  in  love  with  his  work.  In  Aristophanes'  Wasps,  when 
a  certain  grown-up  son  had  confined  his  father  at  home  behind 
bolts  and  bars,  a  slave  of  the  household  gives  the  following  reason  for 
this  severe  discipline:  — 

He  is  a  law-court  lover,  no  man  like  him. 
Judging  is  what  he  dotes  on,  and  he  weeps 
Unless  he  sits  on  the  front  bench  of  all. 
At  night  he  gets  no  sleep,  no,  not  one  grain; 
Or  if  he  doze  the  tiniest  speck,  his  soul 
Flutters  in  dreams  about  the  water-clock.  .  .  . 
The  cock  which  crew  from  eventide,  he  said, 
Was  tampered  with,  he  knew,  to  call  him  late. 
Bribed  by  officials  whose  accounts  were  due. 
Supper  scarce  done,  he  clamors  for  his  shoes, 
Hurries  ere  daybreak  to  the  Court,  and  sleeps 
Stuck  like  a  limpet  to  the  doorpost  there.  .  .  . 

Such  is  his  frenzy,  and  the  more  you  chide  him 
The  more  he  judges;  so  with  bolts  and  bars 
We  guard  him  straitly  that  he  stir  not  out.i* 

The  process  of  legislation.  In  the  time  of  Pericles  laws  were 
commonly  drawn  up  by  special  committees  appointed  by  the  assembly. 
The  draft  of  such  a  law  was  reported  to  the  Five  Hundred,  who 
brought  it  before  the  assembly  for  confirmation.  Shortly  after  Pericles 
the  following  process  was  adopted.  In  the  first  prytany  of  every 
year  the  thesmothetae  brought  the  laws  under  review  before  the  as- 
sembly: first  those  relating  to  the  Five  Hundred;  then  the  general 
statutes;  next  those  dealing  with  the  nine  archons;  and  lastly  with 
the  other  magistrates.  On  this  occasion  any  citizen  could  propose  a 
new  law  and  the  repeal  of  the  corresponding  old  one.  Sufficient 
notice  was  given  of  such  proposals  by  repeated  readings  in  assembly 
and  by  posting  near  the  market-place.  In  the  fourth  session  of  the 
same  prytany  the  assembly  provided  for  the  pay  of  a  special  body  of 
jurors,  termed  nomothetae  — "  legislators  " —  who  were  to  pass  upon 
the  bills  brought  before  them.  The  number  of  nomothetae  varied 
according  to  circumstances.  The  proceedings  before  their  body  took 
the  form  of  a  trial,  in  which  the  proposer  of  the  new  measure  prose- 
cuted the  existing  law  which  he  wished  to  repeal.  It  was  de- 
fended  by    advocates    appointed   by   the   assembly.     Then,    without 

li  H.  Civ.  p.  211  f.  (Aristoph.  Wasps,  88  ff.).  Jury  system  in  general;  .'Vrist.  Const.  Ath. 
.S7,  63-9;  also  references  in  Gilbert,  Const.  Antiq.  376  ff.  The  chief  source  is  the  judicial 
oratory,  represented  by  Antiphon,  Lysias,  Isaeus,  Demosthenes,  and  others. 


254  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

taking  part  in  the  debate,  the  nomothetae  proceeded  to  vote.  In  case 
of  a  majority  in  favor  of  the  bill,  it  became  thereby  a  law.^^ 

Safeguards  of  the  process;  laws  contrasted  with  decrees.  It 
is  to  be  noted  that  legislation  was  possible  but  once  a  year  and  was 
surrounded  with  most  careful  safeguards.  By  committing  it  to  a 
limited  number  of  mature  citizens  bound  by  oath,  the  Athenians  kept 
it  from  the  storms  of  politics.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  too,  that  the 
initiative  only  was  vested  in  the  assembly,  whereas  the  deliberation 
and  the  vote  belonged  to  a  jury  —  that  in  other  words,  the  legislative 
function  was  not  differentiated  from  the  judicial.  ■  The  acts  here 
under  consideration  were  strictly  laws  —  nomoi  —  dealing  with  the 
fundamental  and  permanent  things  of  government.  They  are  to  be 
distinguished  from  decrees  —  psephismata  —  which  had  to  do  with 
the  current  administration.  A  decree  of  the  council  alone  held  good 
for  the  official  year;  but  if  approved  by  the  people,  it  was  valid  till 
repealed." 

The  writ  against  illegality  (graphe  paranomon).  Another 
function  of  the  courts  was  the  protection  of  the  constitution.  The 
downfall  of  the  council  of  the  Areopagus  removed  the  last  conservative 
check  upon  the  government.  In  the  judgment  of  Ephialtes  the  peo- 
ple were  no  longer  children  in  politics  but  had  reached  a  maturity  of 
experience  that  made  them  capable  of  protecting  their  own  govern- 
ment without  the  aid  of  any  form  of  paternalism.  The  definite  in- 
strument in  their  hand  for  this  purpose  was  the  "  writ  against  illegal- 
ity." Under  this  procedure  any  citizen  could  stop  deliberation  on 
any  subject  in  the  assembly  by  declaring  under  oath  his  intention  to 
test  the  legality  of  the  proposal  before  a  popular  court.  It  was  in- 
cumbent upon  him,  accordingly,  to  prosecute  the  proposer  of  the  de- 
cree or  law.  If  convicted,  the  accused  was  liable  to  a  heavy  fine,  to 
disfranchisement,  or  even  to  death.  The  prosecutor,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  failed  to  obtain  a  fifth  part  of  the  votes  was  punishable 
with  a  fine  of  a  thousand  drachmas,  and  disqualified  from  bringing 
further  prosecutions.  This  precaution  was  taken  against  ill-founded 
or  malicious  accusations.  Originally  the  writ  was  applied  only  to 
actual  illegality,  but  in  time  politicians  began  to  use  it  against  any 
proposals   which   they   could   represent   as   detrimental   to  the   com- 

15  Reference  to  a  legislative  committee  in  the  law  for  founding  Brea;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no. 
41.  IS.  Annual  revision  of  laws;  Nomos  in  Demosth.  Tinioc.  20-3  with  comment  in  text; 
Lept.  94.  Nomothetae;  Demosth.  Timoc.  27,  33  f. ;  Lept.  89,  93;  Andoc.  Myst.  84;  Pollux 
Hii.  Ul.     First  known  appointment  of  nomothetae  in  411;  Thuc.  viii.  97.  2. 

■•a  Examples  of  decrees;  H.  Civ.  nos.  69;   71  f. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  255 

munity.  Statesmen  then  found  in  it  a  weapon  for  assailing  one  an- 
other. As  a  milder  and  less  dangerous  instrument  of  political  war- 
fare, it  superseded  ostracism.^ ^ 

Ordinary  cases  at  law.  The  great  majority  of  cases  before  the 
courts,  however,  were  of  the  ordinary  civil  and  criminal  types.  Juris- 
diction in  homicide  still  remained  with  the  Areopagites  and  the 
Ephetae.  The  archon,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  suit,  prepared 
the  case  for  trial,  writing  out  and  placing  under  seal  the  statements 
of  plaintiff  and  defendant  and  the  testimonies  of  witnesses.  The 
same  authority  presided  over  the  court  that  tried  the  case.  The  wit- 
nesses were  present,  not  to  be  cross-questioned,  but  merely  to  ac- 
knowledge their  testimony.  The  jurors,  not  the  chairman,  had  a  right 
to  interrupt  a  speaker  if  he  digressed  or  spoke  obscurely;  and  each 
party  to  the  trial  could  interrogate  the  other  and  require  an  answer. 

After  the  proceedings  and  testimonies  were  given,  the  jurors  with- 
out deliberation  proceeded  to  vote  by  secret  ballot.  A  condemned 
man  was  executed  without  delay. ^^ 

The  judicial  system  applied  to  the  allies.  The  extension  of 
Athenian  iurisdiction  over  the  allies  greatly  increased  the  amount  of 
judicial  business  at  Athens  and  necessitated  a  multiplication  of  the 
courts.  Although  many  juries  were  engaged  simultaneously  in  hear- 
ing suits  throughout  the  year,  except  on.  assembly  days  and  festivals, 
cases  awaiting  trial  accumulated,  to  the  injury  of  the  parties  con- 
cerned. While  grumbling  at  delays,  the  allies  made  no  complaint  of 
corruption,  or  favoritism.  Though  far  from  ideal  the  system  secured 
to  the  masses  a  large  degree  of  justice,  and  contributed  to  civilization 
a  treasure  of  eloquence. ^^ 

The  magistrates.  The  spirit  of  democracy  found  expression, 
too,  in  the  multiplication  of  officials  till  the  number  became  enormous. 
Aristotle  reckons  seven  hundred  at  home  and  a  number  unknown 
to  us,  but  doubtless  large,  for  the  empire.  They  usually  served  in 
boards,  normally  of  ten.  Most  of  them  were  filled  annually  by  lot, 
without  the  privilege  of  reappointment,  on  the  theory  that  all  citizens 
above  the  thetes  were  competent  to  the  ordinary  duties  of  administra- 
tion and  were  equally  entitled  to  a  share  in  it.     Offices  requiring  spe- 

17  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  29,  4;  S9.  1.  The  most  famous  case  in  Aeschines,  Against  Ctesiphon 
and  Demosthenes,  On  the  Crown.  See  also  Demosth.  Tinioc.  ii  f.,  154;  Aristocr.  14,  18; 
Hypereid.  Eux.  6;  Athen.  x.  73;   Plut.  X  Orat.  836  a. 

18  Areopagus  and  Ephetae;  p.  108  f.  Heliastic  courts;  for  references  see  Gilbert,  Cotist. 
Antiq.  391  ff. 

19  P.  347,  432-7, 


256  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

cial  qualifications  —  particularly  military  posts  —  were  elective  and 
could  be  indefinitely  repeated.  ^° 

The  generals  (strategi).  Since  the  great  constitutional  act  of 
^  487-6  the  generals  were  the  highest  magistrates.  They  not  only 
commanded  the  army  and  navy  but  embraced  most  of  the  functions 
falling  in  a  modem  state  to  the  Ministry  or  Cabinet.  They  kept 
informed  on  foreign  affairs,  conducted  negotiations  not  otherwise 
provided  for,  and  requested  the  prytaneis  to  call  special  sessions  of  the 
assembly  in  order  to  introduce  foreign  ambassadors.  They  attended 
to  the  defences  of  the  country  and  the  preparations  for  war.  The 
assembly  could  leave  all  equal  or  confer  the  absolute  command  upon 
one,  or  appoint  one  or  more  of  the  board  to  special  duties.  Like 
other  officials  the  generals  were  subiect  to  deposition  and  trial  for 
maladministration.  The  board  had  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  assem- 
bly, and  the  member  who  excelled  as  orator  and  statesman  inevitably 
took  the  lead  of  his  colleagues.  It  was  through  this  position  that 
Pericles  governed  during  a  great  part  of  his  administration.  ^^ 

Any  Athenian,  whether  an  officer  or  a  private  citizen,  who  under- 
took to  guide  the  policy  of  the  state  had  to  bear  a  heavier  weight  of 
responsibility  than  has  been  necessary  in  any  less  democratic  form 
of  government.  The  masses  who  constituted  the  assembly  —  fullers, 
cobblers,  coppersmiths,  stone-masons,  hucksters,  and  farmers  —  could 
not  be  expected  to  have  the  same  acquaintance  with  the  details  of 
policy,  especially  in  foreign  relations,  that  might  be  presupposed  in  a 
select  body  of  public  men,  such  for  instance  as  tlie  Roman  senate  or  a 
modern  parliament.  The  democracy,  accordingly,  had  to  place 
greater  trust  in  its  advisers,  and  require  of  them  expert  knowledge. 
The  statesman  recognized  this  condition,  and  ran  his  risk.  If  his 
enterprise  failed,  he  was  liable  to  severe  punishment  for  having  de- 
ceived the  people.  "  Where  great  interests  are  at  stake,"  explains  an 
orator  in  the  assembly,  "  we  who  advise  ought  to  look  further  and 
weigh  our  words  more  carefully  than  you  whose  vision  is  limited. 
And  you  should  remember  that  we  are  accountable  to  nobody.  If 
he  who  gave  and  he  who  followed  evil  counsel  suffered  equally,  you 
would  be  more  reasonable  in  your  ideas;  but  now,  whenever  you 
meet  with  a  reverse,  led  away  by  the  passion  of  the  moment,  you  pun- 

20  H.  Civ.  no.  59  (Arist.).     Other  references  in  Gilbert,   Const.   Antiq.  214  ff. 

21  Act  of  487-6;  p.  175.  Part  in  treaty-making;  H.  Civ.  72.  1.  Special  powers  and  func- 
tions; Hdt.  vi.  110;  Thuc.  i.  46,  61;  iii.  3,  19;  vi.  8,  26;  viii.  54;  Xen.  Hell.  i.  4.  20;  Paus. 
i.  29.  5. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 


257 


ish  the  individual  adviser  for  his  error  of  judgment,  but  your  own 
error  you  condone."  --  The  speaker  recognized  the  necessity  of  the 
condition,  though  he  wished  it  might  be  different.  He  knew  well  that 
the  situation  had  its  bright  side.  If  a  statesman  succeeded,  his  glory 
was  all  the  more  splendid;  the  democracy  was  far  more  inclined  than 
the  earlier  aristocracy  to  heroize  its  great  men.  In  evidence  we  may 
adduce  the  almost  unvarying  loyalty  with  which  the  commons  sup- 
ported Pericles  during  his  long  career. 


22Thuc.  iii.  43. 


ADDITIONAL  READING 


Holm,  II,  ch.  xvi;  Grote,  chs.  xlvi,  xlvii;  Meyer,  III,  570-583;  Greenidge, 
Greek  Const.  Hist.,  166-189;  Gilbert,  Const.  Ant.,  170-416  (very  detailed)  ;  Zim- 
mern,  Greek  Commomvealth;  Botsford,  Development  of  Athenian  Constitution; 
Ferguson,  Greek  Imperialism,  38-65 ;  Meier,  M.  H.  E  ,  and  Schomann,  G.  F., 
Der  attische  Prozess,  revised  by  Lipsius,  J.  H.,  2  vols.  (Berlin,  1883-1887); 
Whibley,  283-402;  Francotte,  Les  ^.nances  des  cites  grecques  (Paris:  Champion, 
1909). 


dicast's  ticket 

(Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art) 


A,  f^J  CHAPTER  XVI 


^ 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 
(III)  SOCIETY  AND  PUBLIC  WORKS 

I.     Society  and  Economy 


Conservative  eupatrids.  In  this  democratic  world  many  of  the 
old  nobility  found  tliemselves  totally  out  of  place.  Their  bitter  com- 
plaints were  given  voice  in  pamphlets  issued  by  one  of  their  number 
shortly  after  the  death  of  Pericles  —  the  earliest  extant  political 
treatise  in  any  language.  Unknown  by  name,  the  author  has  aptly 
been  styled  Old  Oligarch.^  Characteristically  he  laments  the  decline 
of  those  arts  in  which  his  class  took  chief  pride:  "  Citizens  giving 
their  time  to  gymnastics  and  music  are  not  to  be  found  at  Athens ;  the 
commons  have  abolished  them,  not  from  disbelief  in  the  beauty  and 
honor  of  such  training,  but  recognizing  the  cultivation  of  these  arts 
to  be  beyond  their  powers."  ^  Formerly  rich  men  alone  enjoyed  such 
luxuries,  but  now  "  the  people  have  built  at  public  cost  a  number  of 
palestras,  dressing  rooms,  and  bathing  establishments  for  their  own 
use;  and  the  mob,  rather  than  the  few  choice  and  well-to-do  people, 
get  the  chief  benefit  of  them."  ^  It  is  equally  a  shame  that  in 
dramatic  festivals  "  the  rich  man  trains  the  chorus,  and  the  people 
reap  the  enjoyment."  * 

He  laments  even  more  the  growth  of  the  naval  power  with  its  sailor 
crowd  at  the  expense  of  the  heavy  infantry,  composed  of  respectable 
middle-class  citizens,^  the  tyrannical  treatment  of  the  allies,  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  wealthy  throughout  the  empire  by  the  levy  of  taxes  and 
by  favoritism  toward  the  poor,*' —  evils  he  has  greatly  exaggerated. 
"  The  fact  that  everywhere  more  consideration  is  shown  to  the  base, 
the  poor,  and  the  common  folk  than  to  persons  of  good  quality,  far 

1  By  Zimmern,   Creek  Commonwealth,   187  et  pass.    It  has  been  preserved  among  Xen- 
ophon's  v/orks.    English  translation;  H.  Civ.  no.  62. 

2  Old  Oligarch,  Constitution  of  the  Athenians,  1.   13. 

3  2.  9. 

4  1.  13;  the  choruses  were  usually  composed  of  poor  people,  and  in  the  theatre  the  ma- 
jority were  relatively  poor. 

5  1.  2;  2.  1:  aristocrats  and  middle-class  farmers  agreed  in  politics. 

6  1.  15, 

2S8 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  259 

from  being  a  matter  of  surprise,  is  evidently  the  keystone  of  the  de- 
mocracy." '  All  this  is  natural,  he  argues,  when  you  consider  the 
character  of  the  ruling  class  in  the  imperial  city.  "  Within  the  ranks 
of  the  people  will  be  found  the  utmost  ignorance,  disorderliness,  and 
rascality,  traceable  chiefly  to  poverty."  *  He  reaches  the  very  heart  of 
the  class  conflict  when  he  says:  "  The  people  do  not  want  the  City  to 
be  well  governed  and  themselves  in  slavery;  they  desire  to  be  free 
and  to  be  masters."  °  "  It  is  these  poor  people,  this  common  folk, 
this  riff-raff,  whose  prosperity  and  increasing  numbers  enhance  de- 
mocracy, whereas  the  shifting  of  fortune  to  the  wealthy  and  the 
better  class  would  bring  into  control  a  strong  party  opposed  to  popu- 
lar rule."  ^'^  "  If  you  want  good  legislation,  you  will  see  the  most 
intelligent  members  of  the  community  making  laws  for  the  rest;  and 
then  the  better  class  will  curb  and  chastise  the  lower  orders.  The 
better  class  will  sit  in  council  in  behalf  of  the  state,  and  not  suffer 
crack-brained  fellows  to  belong  to  the  council  or  to  speak  in  the 
assembly.  But  under  the  weight  of  such  blessings  the  people  will 
shortly  fall  into  slavery."  ^^  These  hard  words  reveal  the  existence 
of  a  class  of  men,  strong  in  wealth,  social  standing  and  intelligence, 
who  were  watching  their  opportunity  to  usurp  the  government  and 
enslave  the  populace,  who  would  hesitate  at  no  violence  or  treason 
to  gain  their  ends.  Under  Pericles  they  could  only  indulge  in  mutual 
grumblings  or  in  indirect  attacks  upon  the  leading  statesmen;  after 
time  was  to  see  examples  of  their  political  methods. 
:\The  eupatrids  maintain  their  leadership.  Notwithstanding 
such  men,  the  commons  still  cherished  profound  respect  for  the 
nobility.  In  fact  Athenian  culture  thus  far  was  chiefly  their  crea- 
tion, and  eupatrids,  not  men  from  tlie  masses,  had  taken  the  lead  in 
democratizing  the  government.  Although  considerations  of  birth  had 
long  disappeared  from  the  constitution,  the  archonships  were  still 
monopolized  by  the  "  good  old  "  families,  and  no  one  but  a  noble 
could  command  the  votes  necessar}^  for  an  election  to  the  generalship. 
This  social  group  formed  a  small  minority  of  the  population;  there 
were  in  the  first  and  second  property  classes  about  twenty-five  hun- 
dred men  above  eighteen  years  of  age,  or  including  women  and  chil- 
dren three  times  that  number. 

7  1.    4. 

8  1.   5.     In  fact  the  poor  were  more  orderly  than  the   rich;   p.    262   below. 

9  1.  8;  the  rule  of  the  "  better  class"  means  slavery  for  the  "many." 

10  1.   4. 
111.   9. 


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PAINTING  POTTERY 
(.Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


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(Boston  Mviseum  of  Fine  Arts) 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  261 

The  thetes;  their  social  and  economic  condition.  The  "  poor," 
whom  the  Oligarch  so  despised,  were  not  paupers,  but  the  smallest 
land-proprietors,  shepherds,  shop-keepers,  artisans,  day-laborers,  and 
sailors  —  in  general,  the  thetes.  Of  the  sixty  thousand  men,  women, 
and  children  belonging  to  the  lowest  property  class  the  great  majority 
were  absolutely  self-sustaining.  The  growing  complexity  of  economic 
conditions,  however,  created  by  the  development  of  commerce  and 
industry,  and  making  greater  and  greater  demands  upon  the  intelli- 
gence, produced  an  increasing  number  of  persons  who  were  incompe- 
tent to  earn  a  living  for  themselves.  Under  an  aristocracy  they 
would  have  died  of  want  or  have  fallen  into  slavery.  The  broader 
and  more  humane  democracy,  however,  faced  the  problem  of  lifting 
this  submerged  class  to  the  plane  of  respectable  citizenship.  Thou- 
sands were  placed  in  comfortable  circumstances  through  coloniza- 
tion, and  thousands  more  were  engaged  in  the  military  and  civil 
service.  The  great  public  works,  too,  furnished  employment  to  a 
vast  number  of  skilled  and  unskilled  laborers.  The  children  of 
patriots  who  fell  in  battle  were  maintained  at  public  expense.  "  This 
is  the  substantial  prize,  with  which,  as  with  a  garland,  Athens 
crowns  her  sons,  living  and  dead."  ^^  Disabled  persons  received  a 
small  pension;  and  that  all  might  be  able  to  attend  the  religious  festi- 
vals, the  state  furnished  the  needy  with  food  on  such  occasions. 
For  a  time  these  efforts  of  the  government,  reinforced  by  unusual  pros- 
perity, eliminated  poverty  from  Athens.  The  state  benevolence  which 
provided  thus  carefully  for  the  poor,  although  far  broader  than  any 
aristocratic  conception  of  humanity,  limited  itself  strictly  to  citizens. 

The  zeugitae,  people  of  moderate  property.  Higher  than  the 
thetes,  and  altogether  beyond  the  need  or  the  desire  of  state  aid,  were 
the  zeugitae,  who  constituted  the  heavy  infantry.  This  class  now 
comprised  about  thirty-three  thousand  of  military  age,  including  the 
colonists,  or  with  the  old  men,  women  and  children,  a  hundred 
thousand  souls.  The  majority  were  freeholders  of  little  farms,  tilling 
their  fields  with  the  help  of  the  family  or,  at  best,  of  a  slave  or  two. 
On  the  stony  mountain  slopes  they  cultivated  olives  and  pastured 
their  sheep  and  goats.  In  the  plain,  too,  they  had  their  orchards, 
but  these  lands  gave  a  double  return,  for  grain  and  vegetables  grew 
among  the  trees.     As  they  were  still  ignorant  of  the  rotation  of  crops, 

12  Pericles,  in  Thuc.   ii.  46. 


262  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

they  had  to  allow  the  land  to  lie  fallow  on  alternate  years. ^^  Prob- 
ably not  more  than  twelve  per  cent,  of  the  total  area  of  Attica  was  thus 
available  in  any  year  for  grain  and  vegetables;  but  these  small 
patches  of  arable  soil  were  intensely  worked.  The  increasing  pop- 
ulation of  Athens  and  Peiraeus,  and  the  inflow  of  money  from  the 
empire  to  its  capital  guaranteed  rising  prices  for  rural  products,  and 
brought  the  farming  class  to  its  highest  reach  of  prosperity.  The 
estates  were  well  stocked  and  the  dwellings  and  barns  were  better 
than  in  any  other  Hellenic  country.^* 

Reasons  for  the  conservatism  of  the  zeugitae.  These  people 
of  middle  station,  whos'e  material  happiness  was  now  greater  than 
in  earlier  ages,  constituted  the  element  of  stability,  the  chief  con- 
servative force,  in  the  state.  This  character  however  was  due  to  no 
passing  condition,  but  fundamentally  to  the  narrow  limitations  upon 
the  hopes  and  ambitions  of  the  farmer  of  moderate  wealth  in  every 
age  and  every  part  of  Hellas.  The  slight  scope  afforded  to  enter- 
prise and  inventiveness,  the  necessity  of  waiting  upon  Nature  for 
her  favors,  gave  him  patience  and  resignation.  Then,  too,  the  small 
total  area  of  arable  land  in  Greece,  and  the  force  of  public  opinion 
against  the  accumulation  of  great  estates,  kept  far  from  him  the 
thought  of  self-aggrandizement  at  the  expense  of  neighbors.  Gener- 
ally therefore  he  was  content  to  support  his  family  well  above  the 
condition  of  want  and  misery  and  to  perform  his  military  duty. 
Against  all  radicalism  in  politics  and  public  economy,  against  wars 
with  neighbors  and  peace  with  Persia,  he  was  firmly  set.  Herein 
his  sympathies  were  with  the  old  landed  aristocracy  in  opposition  to 
the  city  population,  industrialism,  and  absolute  democracy.  To  this 
class,  accordingly,  was  due  the  steadiness  and  the  conservatism  of 
Athens  amid  the  forces  that  made  powerfully  for  innovation. ^^ 

Metics :  alien  residents.  However  strong  in  numbers  and  in  pur- 
pose, this  class  could  not  greatly  retard  the  up-building  of  a  city 
economy  with  its  concomitant  inflow  of  aliens  and  slaves.  From 
the  time  of  Solon  Athens  had  attracted  artisans  from  other  Greek 
lands  by  giving  them  easy  access  to  the  citizenship,  and  Cleisthenes 
had  enrolled  in  the  tribes  a  great  number  of  metics.     In  this  liberality 

13  Xenophon,  Economicus,  16,  10  ff . ;  IG.  II.  1059.  17  ff.  (contract);  Suidas,  s.  eiri 
KaXdfirj  dpovv.  Number  of  heavy  troops;  Thuc.  ii.  13;  Diod.  xii.  40.  There  were  perhaps 
innno  rren  of  this  class  in  the  colonies,  leaving  about  23,000  heavy  troops  in   Attica. 

1 4  O.x.   Hell.   12.  5. 

15  Zimmern,  Greek  Commonwealth,  224  f. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  263 

Athens  sought  a  cure  for  the  poverty  that  had  long  cramped  her  life. 
The  growth  of  manufacturing  gave  remunerative  work  to  an  increas- 
ing number  of  hands,  and  the  exchange  of  wares  for  foreign  grain 
made  possible  an  indefinite  increase  in  the  population.  After  Cleis- 
thenes  Athens  rarely  admitted  strangers  to  citizenship,  yet  Themisto- 
cles  encouraged  their  coming  by  exempting  them  from  the  sojourn- 
er's tax.  This  favor  was  temporary  but  the  attraction  was  too  great 
for  them  to  resist,  and  they  were  heartily  welcome.  As  a  typical 
case  may  be  mentioned  tlie  invitation  given  by  Pericles  to  Cephalus 
of  Syracuse,  an  armorer,  to  come  to  Attica  and  set  up  his  establish- 
ment in  Peiraeus.^*'  Altogether  there  were  now  in  Attica  about  forty 
thousand  alien  residents  including  women  and  children.  They  were 
not  given  direct  aid  by  the  government,  but  were  protected  equally 
with  the  citizens  and  stood  on  a  social  level  with  them.  A  contem- 
porary writes:  "We  have  established  an  equality  .  .  .  between 
metics  and  citizens  because  the  city  stands  in  need  of  her  resident 
aliens  to  meet  the  requirements  of  so  many  arts  and  of  the  navy."  ^^ 
Of  the  attitude  of  the  state  toward  the  various  classes  of  immigrants 
Isocrates  could  say:  "  She  ordered  her  administration  in  such  a 
spirit  of  welcome  to  strangers  and  of  friendliness  to  all,  as  to  suit 
both  those  who  were  in  want  of  money  and  those  who  desired  to  enjoy 
the  wealth  they  possessed;  and  she  failed  in  serving  neither  the  pros- 
perous nor  those  who  were  unfortunate  in  their  own  states,  but  so 
acted  that  each  of  these  classes  finds  with  us  a  delightful  sojourn  and 
a  safe  refuge."  ^^ 

Slaves.  Whereas  to  the  alien  residents  the  democracy  brought 
great  gain,  the  burden  of  the  new  development  rested  more  and  more 
heavily  upon  the  slaves.  In  Pre-Persian  Athens,  when  her  economy 
was  chiefly  rural,  free  hands  performed  nearly  all  labor,  apart  from 
domestic  service  in  the  homes  of  the  rich.  After  the  war,  as  Athens 
entered  upon  her  industrial  career,  the  number  of  slaves  rapidly  in- 
creased. The  conditions  found  in  Miletus,  in  Chalcis,  in  Aegina, 
and  in  other  centres  of  industry  in  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries,^^ 
were  now  repeated  on  a  larger  scale  in  Athens.  ]\Ien  were  eager  to 
invest  their  capital,  small  or  great,  in  slaves,  whom  they  employed  in 
productive  labor,-°  in  the  fields,  shops,  on  the  public  works,   and 

16  Lysias,   Eratosth.  4. 

IT  Old  Oligarch  Const.  Ath.  1.   12. 

18  Isoc.   Panegyricus,  41. 

1!>  P.   57   ff. 

20  Xen.  Mcnt.   ii.  3.  3. 


264  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

especially  in  the  mines.  Nicias,  the  general,  who  was  the  wealthiest 
Athenian  of  his  time,  owned  a  thousand  slaves,  engaged  in  mining. 
They  were  under  a  manager,  who  paid  to  the  master  an  obol  a  day 
for  each  slave,  making  an  annual  income  of  ten  talents.'^ 

Most  slaves  at  Athens  in  this  age  were  non-Greeks,  obtained  by 
war,  kidnapping,  and  purchase.  The  stronger  and  more  intractable 
were  sent  to  the  mines,  where  they  rapidly  died  from  the  unhealthful 
conditions.  The  docile,  generally  the  younger  men,  were  trained  to 
field-labor  and  industry.  For  increasing  their  efficiency  to  the  high- 
est point,  the  masters  found  it  wise  to  treat  them  kindly  and  keep 
ihem  happy. -^  Sometimes  we  find  a  group  so  attached  to  a  shop  as 
to  be  bought  and  sold  with  it;  others  were  rented  out;  but  the  more 
reliable  were  left  free  to  make  their  own  engagements  on  condition  of 
paying  their  masters  periodically  a  specified  sum.  With  energy  and 
thrift  such  a  person  might  in  time  save  enough  to  purchase  his  free- 
dom. Other  slaves  were  the  trusty  managers  of  their  master's  busi- 
ness. There  were  state  slaves:  three  hundred  purchased  Scythian 
archers  constituted  the  police  force  of  the  city;  '^  unfree  clerks  and 
stewards  occupied  responsible  positions.  All  the  better  class  of  slaves, 
public  and  private,  were  encouraged  to  usefulness  and  loyalty  by  the 
hope  or  the  promise  of  freedom.  Legal  provision  was  made  for 
.  their  protection.  A  mistreated  slave  could  take  refuge  at  the  shrine 
of  Theseus  or  of  the  Furies  and  demand  to  be  sold  to  a  more  humane 
master.^*  In  complaining  of  their  good  treatment  as  an  evil  of  the 
times,  the  Old  Oligarch  pays  an  unintentional  compliment  to  the 
democracy:  "Another  point  is  the  extraordinary  liberty  allowed  to 
slaves  and  metics  at  Athens,  where  a  blow  is  illegal,  and  a  slave  will 
not  step  aside  and  let  you  pass  him  in  the  street.  The  reason  is,  if 
it  were  legal  for  a  slave,  metic,  or  freedman,  to  be  beaten  by  a  citizen, 
it  would  often  happen  that  an  Athenian  might  be  mistaken  for  a 
slave  or  metic  and  suffer  a  flogging,  seeing  that  the  Athenians  are 
not  better  clothed  than  slaves  or  superior  in  personal  appearance."  ^^ 

Slavery  at  Athens  relatively  estimated.  In  Periclean  Athens 
slavery,  as  well  as  industrialism,  was  still  in  its  infancy,  the  number 
in  servitude  constituting  undoubtedly  a  minority  of  the  population. 
At  least  outside  the  mines,  they  were  treated  with  more  kindness  and 

21  H.  Civ.  p.  438  (Xen.   Ways,  A.  14  f.). 
22Xen,  Mem.   ii.   4.  3;    Athen.   vi.   92. 

23  Pollux,   viii.    131    f. 

24  Schol.  Aristoph.  Knights,  1312;   Plut.   Thes.  36. 

25  Const.  Ath.   1.   10. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  265 

consideration  than  have  been  accorded  even  to  common  citizens  under 
oligarchies,  or  we  may  safely  say,  to  modern  factory  hands  and  the 
denizens  of  sweat-shops  by  modern  employers.  The  civilization  of 
Athens  was  due  to  the  labor  of  men  who  were  free  or  at  least  who 
worked  in  the  hope  of  freedom.  These  conditions  were  the  fruit  of 
liberal  ideas.  By  directing  their  activity  to  manufacturing  and  com- 
merce, democracy,  revealing  to  the  Greeks  their  destiny,  provided 
them  with  a  moderate  degree  of  material  wealth,  and  opened  a  field 
for  the  full  development  of  their  genius.  At  the  same  time  it  endowed 
them  with  a  broader  sympathy  and  a  larger  conception  of  human 
duty  than  the  world  had  known  before. 

The  shops.  There  was  no  organization  of  industry  at  Athens;  the 
largest  establishment  known  to  us  was  the  armory  of  Cephalus, 
manned  by  a  hundred  and  twenty  slaves.^"  From  a  modern  point  of 
view  business  was  on  a  diminutive  scale;  there  were  no  factories  but 
shops  merely.  Often  a  part  of  the  dwelling  was  used  for  the  pur- 
pose. The  proprietor  worked  with  his  own  hands,  initiating  his  sons, 
and  perhaps  the  sons  of  neighbors,  into  the  mysteries  of  his  trade,  and 
with  the  expansion  of  his  business,  rented  or  purchased  slaves  as 
further  aids.  Women,  too,  kept  shop  as  bakers,  dyers,  and  dealers  in 
ribbons  or  flowers.  Many  craftsmen  lacked  the  capital  for  accumu- 
lating a  stock  of  products,  but  manufactured  articles  merely  as  they 
were  wanted  by  neighbors,  whereas  the  larger  shops  produced  wares 
for  exportation.  A  marked  feature  of  the  fifth  century  shop  was  the 
spirit  of  equality  between  employer  and  employed,  between  freemen 
and  slaves.  This  happy  atmosphere  belonged  to  the  shop  as  an  out- 
growth from  the  family,  and  was  an  essential  condition  to  the  pro- 
duction of  work  of  high  merit.  The  skilled  laborer  was  proud  of  his 
profession.  All  craftsmen,  slave  and  free  alike,  wrought  not  for  mere 
subsistence  or  gain,  but  in  a  true  artistic  spirit  for  the  creation  of  the 
beautiful.  In  other  words  the  Greek  mechanic  was  an  artist.  Hence 
it  is  that  the  extant  products  of  his  craft,  from  grave  reliefs  to  pots 
and  pitchers,  are  all  works  of  genuine  art.  A  thing  inseparable  from 
true  art  is  individuality;  and  in  our  modern  age  of  mechanical  pro- 
duction it  is  difficult  for  us  to  appreciate  this  fact,  that  the  Greek 
apprentice,  slave  or  free,  aimed  not  at  a  servile  imitation  of  the  pat- 
tern, but  at  the  creation  of  something  new  —  something  with  a  char- 
acter and  a  beauty  of  its  own.     Significantly  the  thousands  of  Greek 

26  Lysias,  Eratosth.  19. 


266  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

vases  still  extant  express  in  their  endless  variety  the  free,  versatile 
spirit  of  Hellas. 

Organization  and  pay  of  labor  on  public  works.  The  Greek 
love  of  individual  liberty  prevented  the  formation  of  large  industrial 
companies.  Hence  when  the  state  projected  a  great  public  work, 
like  the  Parthenon,  its  committee  of  supervisors  elected  in  assembly, 
had  to  divide  the  entire  labor  into  a  multitude  of  diminutive  parts, 
and  let  out  the  several  parts  by  contract  to  the  masters  of  the  shops 
or  stone  yards  above  described.  The  contractor  agreed  in  writing 
to  bring  with  him  a  specified  number  of  laborers,  to  do  work  of  a 
quality  satisfactory  to  the  committee,  and  to  be  responsible  for 
damages  to  the  material.^"  In  the  grant  of  the  same  daily  wage  to 
slave,  metic,  and  freeman,  to  underling  and  contractor,  and  archi- 
tect, may  be  found  further  evidence  of  the  lack  of  distinction  between 
artist  and  artisan  and  a  further  expression  of  the  democratic  spirit."* 

II.     Public  Works  and  Art 

The  Greek  idea  of  beauty.  The  spirit  of  the  age  found  its  high- 
est expression  in  the  creation  of  the  beautiful  as  the  Greeks  them- 
selves understood  it  —  beauty  in  the  perfectly  rounded  physical  and 
moral  development  of  the  individual  and  in  the  order  and  harmony  of 
a  well-regulated  government  and  social  life,  as  well  as  in  artistic 
public  buildings  and  sculptures,  in  systematic  thought  and  in  histori- 
cal and  dramatic  literature. 

A  symmetrical  city.  The  idea  of  a  symmetrical  city,  with  broad 
straight  avenues  crossing  each  other  at  right  angles,  was  first  con- 
ceived by  Hippodamus  of  Miletus,  a  philosopher  and  practical  scien- 
tist, and  applied  to  the  reconstruction  of  Peiraeus."^  The  provisional 
character  of  the  private  houses  and  the  absence  of  traditional  associa- 
tions in  the  port  town  made  this  work  possible.  About  the  same 
time  the  temporary  dockyards  erected  by  Themistocles  were  replaced, 
at  a  cost  of  a  thousand  talents,  by  substantial  buildings  greatly  en- 
larged for  the  accommodation  of  the  growing  navy.  Relatively  to 
the  financial  means  of  the  Athenians  this  outlay  was  enormous.^" 

27  Example    of   such    a    contract    at    Lebadea;    Michel,    no.    589    (translation    of    part    in 
2immem,  256. 

28  H.  Civ.  no.  108;   building  of  Erechtheum  through  small  contracts;   one  drachma  a  day 
to  architect,  free  mechanic,  and  slave. 

29  H.   Civ.   no.  63  (Aristotle);  Harpocration,  s.   'Iwrroddfieia;   Bekker,  Anecd.   I.   266.  28 
(about  450). 

30  Isoc.   Areop.  66   (nearly  $1,100,000). 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  267 

Plan  for  the  restoration  of  Hellenic  temples,  about  456.  Thus 
far  little  had  been  done  in  Greece  to  restore  the  shrines  demolished 
by  the  Persians.  After  the  battle  of  Oenophyta,  which  seemed  to 
Pericles  to  assure  to  his  city  a  place  in  central  Greece  like  that  of 
Sparta  in  Peloponnesus,  it  occurred  to  him  that  the  moment  was  op- 
portune for  calling  a  general  Hellenic  congress  at  Athens  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  united  action  in  restoring  such  temples,  of  paying 
to  the  gods  the  honors  vowed  in  that  crisis,  and  of  adopting  measures 
for  the  security  of  commerce  on  the  seas.  At  the  same  time  his  own 
city  set  aside  a  fund  for  the  building  of  temples.  This  magnificent 
plan  of  uniting  Hellas  on  a  basis  of  common  interest  and  religious 
sympathy  was  foiled  by  the  Lacedaemonians  and  the  work  of  Pericles 
in  temple  building  had  to  be  limited  to  Attica.'^ 

The  Odeum,  Music  Hall,  about  445.  Among  his  earliest  build- 
ings was  the  Odeum,  intended  for  the  musical  contests  of  the  Pana- 
thenaea,  and  serving  therefore  a  religious  purpose.  It  was  situated 
on  the  declivity  of  the  Acropolis  immediately  to  the  east  of  the  theatre. 
Constructed  mainly  of  wood,  only  with  interior  columns  of  stone,  it 
was  given  a  conical  roof  in  imitation  of  Xerxes'  tent."-  As  judge  of 
the  Panathenaic  contests,  Pericles  laid  down  the  rules  for  the  competi- 
tions in  singing  and  in  playing  on  the  pipe  and  lyre.  Since  the  build- 
ing was  completed  no  long  time  before  the  banishment  of  Thucydides, 
Cratinus,  the  comic  poet,  could  present  a  caricature  of  Pericles 
proudly  wearing  on  his  head  the  music  hall  in  token  of  his  political 
victory :  — 

"  Our  Zeus  with  lofty  skull  appears; 
The  Odeum  on  his  head  he  wears, 
Because  he  fears  the  ostrakon  no  more."  ^^ 

Temple  of  Hephaestus.  Near  the  close  of  his  administration  he 
began  the  misnamed  Theseum,  which  still  stands  northwest  of  the 
Acropolis,  on  a  slight  elevation  overlooking  the  market-place.  It  is 
a  curious  fact  that  the  best-preserved  of  all  Greek  temples  cannot 
with  certainty  be  identified.  Probably  it  belonged  to  Hephaestus, 
whose  shrine  stood  in  this  vicinity,  looking  down  upon  the  metal 
market;   and  in  that  case  it  was  dedicated  in  421.^*     The  metope 

31  Plut.    Per.    17.     On    the    date;    Judeich,    73.    Temple    fund;    Anonymus    Argentinensis 
(Keil),  p.  78  ff.;  cf.  Judeich,  73.  .... 

.  32  Plut.  Per.   13;   Paus.   i.  8.  6;   14.   1;  20.  4;   Vitruvius  v.  9.   1. 

33  Cratinus,  in  Plut.  Lex.   13.     Ostracism  of  Thucydides;   p.  344. 

34  Paus.  i.  14.  6;  Andoc.  Myst.  40;  Bekker,  Anecd.  I.  316.  23;  Gardner,  Anc.  Athens,  410 
ff.;  Judeich,  325  f. 


268  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

sculptures  represent  the  exploits  of  Heracles  and  of  Theseus,  whom 
the  growing  pride  of  Athens  had  elevated  to  a  place  beside  the  older 
hero.  The  temple  is  built  of  Pentelic  marble,  in  the  Doric  style  mod- 
ified by  strong  Ionic  influence.  Traces  of  color  still  remaining  afford 
a  conception  of  the  general  principles  of  painting  employed  in  archi- 
tecture. The  great  spaces,  as  the  columns  and  architrave,  were  left 
plain,  whereas  the  detailed  work  was  painted,  generally  red  and 
blue. 

If  this  were  the  only  classical  building  remaining  in  Athens,  it 
would  undoubtedly  impress  us  as  a  model  of  beauty;  but  in  fact  it  is 
overshadowed  by  the  presence,  on  the  Acropolis,  of  a  temple  of 
grander  and  more  harmonious  proportions,  and  of  far  more  skilful 
execution;  an  appreciation  of  other  architecture  is  made  difficult  by 
a  view  of  the  Parthenon. 

The  Parthenon;  its  builders.  The  great  temple  to  Athena,  which 
the  Athenians  had  been  planning,  but  continually  deferring,  since 
the  time  of  Cleisthenes,  was  left  to  Pericles  to  take  definitely  in  hand 
and  bring  to  completion.  The  work  began  in  the  year  447-6,  prob- 
ably before  the  disaster  at  Coronea,  at  a  time  when  Athens  was  at 
peace  with  her  neighbors  and  seemingly  in  assured  control  of  her 
continental  alliance.  A  commission  of  supervisors  was  elected  to 
engage  the  artists  and  laborers  and  to  oversee  the  work.  Pericles  was 
a  member  of  the  commission.  The  architects  were  Callicrates,  who 
had  built  one  of  the  Long  Walls,  and  Ictinus,  evidently  a  younger 
man,  to  whose  originality  the  new  features  of  the  temple  seem  to  have 
been  largely  due.^'^  Pericles'  chief  adviser  for  the  decorative  sculp- 
tures was  Pheidias.  The  two  men  were  friends  and  social  equals;  for 
in  that  age  the  artist  was  not  thought  unfit  for  refined  society.^*^  Nine 
years  later  (438-7)  the  cella  walls  and  roof  were  sufficiently  complete 
to  protect  the  statue  of  Athena,  at  that  time  set  on  its  pedestal;  but 
the  work  continued  to  the  year  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war. 

The  rooms  and  their  uses.  The  temple  comprised  two  rooms. 
The  smaller  on  the  west  served  as  a  store-chamber  for  the  goddess, 
and  was  named  Parthenon  — "  maiden's  chamber  " —  for  what  reason 
we  are  not  informed.     It  was  not  till  after  the  age  of  Demosthenes 

•35  Philochoras,  FHG.  I.  p.  400.  97;  IG.  300-11;  suppl.  p.  37,  74,  147;  Plut.  Per.  13; 
Strabo  ix.  1.  16.  An  effort  to  date  the  beginning  back  to  450-49  has  failed;  Judeich,  74,  n. 
8. 

36  Plut.  Per.  13,  unnecessarily  doubted  by  some. 


o 

12; 
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270  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

that  the  name  Parthenon  extended  to  the  entire  building.  The  larger 
room  termed  Hecatompedos  — "  hundred-foot  chamber  " —  on  the  east, 
the  cella  in  the  narrower  sense,  contained  the  statue  of  the  deity,  and 
served  therefore  as  her  dwelling-place.  Within  the  cella  a  colonnade 
supported  a  higher  series  of  columns  reaching  to  the  panelled  wooden 
ceiling.  In  the  store-room  there  was  a  similar  arrangement  of  four 
supporting  columns.^" 

The  columns;  curved  lines.  The  temple  was  amphiprostyle ;  the 
door  at  each  end  opened  upon  a  porch  supported  by  a  row  of  six 
columns.  The  building  was  also  peripteral  as  it  was  entirely  sur- 
rounded by  columns,  eight  on  each  end  and  seventeen  to  the  side, 
counting  those  on  the  corners  twice.  The  columns,  which  contribute 
to  the  temple  its  chief  element  of  beauty,  are  in  themselves  a  perfect 
blend  of  strength  and  grace.  They  taper  from  stylobate  to  capital  in 
a  harmonious  outward  curve  barely  perceptible  to  the  eye,  and  incline 
slightly  toward  the  cella.  There  is  the  same  gentle  swell  in  the 
echinus.  In  fact  we  find  no  long  straight  lines  in  any  part  of  the 
temple.  The  stylobate  is  slightly  convex,  and  other  parts  show  devia- 
tion from  rigidly  straight  or  plumb  lines.  The  curves  were  probably 
not  computed  mathematically  but  instinctively  adopted  as  most  ex- 
pressive at  once  of  symmetry  and  variety.  The  use  of  curves  was  not 
only  to  correct  an  error  of  vision  —  as  in  the  stylobate,  an  appear- 
ance of  sagging  —  but  especially  to  present  to  the  eye.  in  place  of  a 
stiff,  mechanical  structure,  a  delicate  harmony  of  lines  and  a  pleasing 
combination  of  strength  with  elasticity.^^ 

The  metopes.  Among  the  sculptures  of  the  Parthenon  the 
metopes  claim  our  first  attention  because  they  seem  to  have  been 
finished  before  the  rest,  and  especially  because  they  embody  a  more 
primitive  and  elemental  idea  than  any  of  the  other  groups.  They 
represent  physical  contests  and  show,  even  to  exaggeration  the  live- 
liest interest  in  athletic  forms  and  attitudes  and  in  the  tension  and 
play  of  muscles.  They  lead  our  thought  immediately  back  to  Myron, 
who  died  too  early  to  have  a  hand  in  the  work,  whose  genius,  how- 
ever,  had  revolutionized  athletic  sculpture  along  the  lines  followed 
by  the  artists  of  these  metopes.  The  stupendous  improvement  in 
Hellenic  art  within  a  period  of  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  may 

87  Origin  of  name  Parthenon;  D'Ooge,  Acrop.  136  f.  Hecatompedos,  100  Attic  feet  in 
length.  The  idea  that  the  colonnade  within  the  cell  supported  a  gallery  has  been  aban- 
doned. 

38  D'Ooge,  92-5,  118  f.,  328;  Goodyear,  W.  H.,  Greek  Refinements. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  271 

be  well  appreciated  by  comparing  a  Parthenon  metope  with  one  from 
the  earliest  temple  at  Selinus.  In  the  latter  grouj)  we  find,  not  a 
mere  succession  of  figures,  but  an  organic  whole,  whose  lines  are 
graceful  curves,  whose  human  and  animal  forms  are  in  a  high  degree 
natural  and  living.  The  subjects  of  the  individual  metopes  and 
their  relative  location  must  have  been  determined  by  a  supervising 
artist,  or  by  the  commission,  whereupon  their  construction  was  let  out 
severally  to  the  masters  of  stone  yards  mentioned  early  in  this  chap- 
ter; hence  we  find  great  individuality  and  a  wide  range  of  merit  in 
their  treatment. ^^ 

Interpretation  of  the  sculptures.  In  our  review  of  the  Parthe> 
non  sculptures  we  shall  attempt  to  discover  the  meaning  of  the  several 
groups.  First  it  is  to  be  noted  that  all  have  reference  to  Athena :  they 
symbolize  epochs,  so  to  speak,  in  the  history  of  her  connection  with 
Athens.  The  metopes  represent  conflicts  (1)  between  Lapiths  and 
Centaurs,  (2)  between  Greeks  and  Amazons,  (3)  between  Gods  and 
Giants  —  in  general,  between  the  powers  of  order  and  the  forces  of 
chaos.  It  is  the  first  chapter  in  the  religious  history  of  Athens,  the 
period  anterior  to  Athena's  present  orderly  rule. 

The  pediments.  The  second  chapter  is  filled  with  the  birth  of 
Athena  from  the  head  of  her  father  Zeus.  An  event  of  primary  im- 
portance in  Athenian  religious  history,  it  occupies  the  most  conspicu- 
ous place  —  the  east  pediment,  above  the  cella  door  and  facing  the 
rising  sun.  The  goddess  stands  full  grown  and  armed  by  the  throne 
of  Zeus  in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  deities.  In  the  third  chapter,  pre- 
sented by  the  west  pediment,  Athena  strives  with  Poseidon  for  suprem- 
acy over  Athens.  The  sea-god  strikes  the  earth  with  his  trident, 
thus  causing  a  spring  to  bubble  forth.  Athena,  however,  by  creating 
the  olive  tree  wins  the  victory  in  the  presence  of  a  group  of  gods  who 
fill  the  pediment.  She  becomes,  accordingly,  queen  of  the  City  and 
first-born  of  the  citizens. 

The  general  design  of  the  pedimental  groups  must  have  been  due 
to  a  single  master  artist  —  probably  Pheidias.  The  individual 
figures  were  undoubtedly  the  creation  of  separate  artists,  who  accord- 
ing to  their  genius  wrought  in  the  Pheidian  spirit.  Many  of  the 
figures  have  perished.  Those  which  survive,  though  badly  mutilated, 
are  unrivaled  among  sculpture  in  the  round.     They  show  a  nobility  of 

39  Gardner,  A72C.  Athens,  281  ff. ;  D'Ooge,  157-60.    Possible  influence  of  Pheidias;   Gard- 
ner, Six  Creek  Sculptors,  96.    Metope  of  Selinus;  p.  268  above. 


272  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

form  and  attitude,  a  quiet  majesty,  a  perfect  naturalness  free  from 
every  exaggeration  and  affectation,  a  delicacy  combined  with  truth  in 
the  rendering  of  flesh  and  muscle,  and  of  the  different  textures  of 
drapery  —  an  absolute  mastery  of  the  material  and  an  unerring  sense 
of  simple,  dignified  beauty  matchless  in  the  realm  of  art.*° 

The  Ionic  frieze.  The  fourth  and  final  chapter  is  filled  by  the 
Ionic  frieze,  a  continuous  band  of  low  relief  extending  around  the 
temple  walls  within  the  colonnade.  The  band  divides  naturally  into 
groups  of  persons.  The  subject  of  the  whole  is  the  Panathenaic 
festival  held  in  July  in  honor  of  the  goddess.  To  avoid  the  monotony 
of  a  procession,  the  master  artist  has  arranged  the  groups  not  uni- 
formly in  actual  march,  but  often  in  various  preparations  for  it.  We 
see,  for  example,  magistrates  and  priests  in  their  official  attire,  men 
leading  animals  for  the  sacrifice,  youths  bringing  jars  of  water,  girls 
carrying  baskets  of  other  necessities  for  the  religious  services,  knights 
with  their  spirited  horses,  and  groups  of  deities  seated,  inspecting  the 
changing  scene.  Though  the  parts  vary  in  artistic  merit  the  frieze 
as  a  whole  has  no  rival  among  reliefs.*^  The  sculptors  alike  of  pedi- 
ment and  frieze  did  not  aim  to  produce,  in  any  popular  sense,  the 
utmost  grace  or  physical  loveliness;  in  these  qualities  they  were  sur- 
passed by  later  artists.  Their  object  was  a  beauty  that  would  appeal 
to  the  highest  intellectual  and  moral  perception  of  the  age,  that  would 
make  the  spectators  think  of  pure  and  noble  things.  Prime  requisites 
were  dignity,  sobriety,  and  self-restraint.  These  were  the  qualities  of 
a  people  who  were  not  to  revel  in  the  luxuries  of  peace  and  wealth  or 
yield  to  individualistic  self-indulgence,  but  were  to  practice  submis- 
sion to  strict  discipline  in  peace  as  well  as  in  war,  to  apply  them- 
selves to  the  noble  task  of  ruling  an  empire  in  wisdom  and  justice, 
and  to  making  their  city  a  pattern  for  Hellas.  Their  art  expressed 
and  fostered  these  aspirations. 

Athena  Parthenos.  The  statue  of  Athena  Parthenos  for  the  tem- 
ple was  the  work  of  Pheidias.  The  unclad  parts  were  of  ivory,  the 
garments  of  gold,  covering  a  wooden  frame.  It  was  a  colossus  thirty 
feet  in  height  on  a  pedestal  of  eight  feet.  The  goddess  wore  a 
chiton  of  Doric  style  draped  in  heavy  folds  which  hid  the  details 
of  the  person.  As  compared  with  the  other  sculptures,  above  men- 
tioned, this  work  seems  to  us  archaic  —  a  quality,  however,  which 

40  Paus.   i    24    5;   Gardner,  Anc.   Athens,  293-322;  DOoge,   147-57. 

41  Gardner,  322-40;   D'Ooge,   160-8. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES 


273 


adds  to  the  strenpith  and  dip;nity  of  its  character.  The  room  was 
lighted  only  through  tlie  double  door;  and  except  for  a  brief  time 
after  sunrise  it  must  have  remained  throughout  the  day  in  constant 
twilight.  In  this  semi-darkness  the  soft  gleam  of  the  ivory  and  gold, 
the  colossal  grandeur  of  the  statue,  its  quiet,  dignified  attitude,  the 
simplicity  and  sobriety  of  dress  —  all  worthily  became  the  goddess 
who  from  this  home  of  the  beautiful  ruled  in  might  and  in  glory  over 
an  earnest,  ambitious  race  of  men.*^  Architecture  is  a  true  expres- 
sion of  character  of  a  nation,  race  or  age.  Thus  the  Doric  order  is 
typical  of  the  sturdy  growth  of  the  peninsular  Greek  temperament  as 
contrasted  with  the  lighter  Ionic  style  which  belongs  to  Asia  Minor. 
So,  too,  the  Hellenic  temple  contrasts  with  the  Gothic  cathedral  as 
pagan  with  Christian,  as  the  ancients  with  the  modems.  The  sim- 
plicity and  symmetry  of  the  Greek  temple  have  their  counterpart  in 
Greek  intellect  and  character,  and  the  Hellenic  shrine  nestles  close  to 
earth  as  if  perfectly  content  with  this  goodly  world.  But  the  vast- 
ness  and  the  complexity  of  the  Gothic  cathedral  are  equally  typical 
of  modern  life,  while  its  spires  lift  the  devout  thought  to  the  treasures 
of  heaven  "  where  neither  moth  nor  rust  corrupt."  Notable  is  the 
antithesis  between  worldly,  intellectual  beauty  and  spiritual  aspiration. 

42Thuc.  ii.   13.  5;  Diod.  xii.  40.  3;   Philoch.  FHG.  I.  p.  400.  97;   Paus.   i.   17.  2;  24.  5;  x. 
34.  8;  Pliny,  N.  H.  xxxvi.  18;  Plut.  Per.  31;  IG.  I.  298  f;  suppl.  p.  146  f. 


PARTHENON  FRIEZE 


274  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  367-378;  Holm,  II,  ch.  xx;  Beloch,  II,  i,  155-164,  203-218;  Busolt,  III, 
451-490,  560-582;  Abbott,  Pericles  and  the  Golden  Age  of  Greece,  chs.  xvii, 
xviii;  Zimmern,  Greek  Commonwealth;  Guiraud,  Etudes  economiques  sur  I'an- 
tiquite  (Paris:  Alcan,  1900);  Francotte,  L'industrie  dans  la  Grece  ancienne 
(Brussels,  1900);  Glover,  From  Pericles  to  Philip  (Macmillan,  1917),  ch.  ii; 
Haverfield,  City  Planning  (Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1913);  Meyer,  "Die 
wirtschaftliche  Entwickelung  der  antiken  Welt,"  "  Skaverei  im  Altertum "  in 
Kleine  Schrijten  (Halle,  1910)  ;  Weller,  Athens  and  its  Monuments;  Judeich, 
Topographic  von  Athen;  Fowler  and  Wheeler,  Handbook  of  Greek  Archccology, 
144-158,  229-251;  Gardner,  Handbook  of  Greek  Sculpture,  279-326;  Whibley, 
Companion,  213-224,  237-245,  416-421,  518-534;  Stobart,  Glory  that  was 
Greece,  ch.  iv. 


HERODOTUS 
(National  Museum,  Naples) 


CHAPTER  XVII 


AGE  OF  PERICLES 


(IV)     THOUGHT,  CULTURE,  AND  CHARACTER 


I.     Science  and  Philosophy 


Scientific  progress:  technical  writings  and  astronomy.     The 

scientific  spirit,  awakened  in  the  sixth  century  in  Ionia,  had  run 
swiftly  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Hellas,  to  incite  in  indi- 
viduals a  love  of  collecting  facts  and  of  systematizing  them  on  a 
rational  basis.  Many  literary  products  of  this  spirit  served  useful  as 
well  as  theoretical  purposes.  Works  on  sculpture  and  architecture, 
music  and  literary  criticism  were,  in  part,  handbooks  for  learners  of 
the  respective  arts.^  From  the  time  of  Pythagoras  advances  were 
made  in  arithmetic,  geometry,  and  astronomy.     His  followers  taught 

1  Polycleitus,  The  Ideal  Human  Form.    Sophocles,   The  Chorus.     Ictinus,   The  Parthenon. 
Stesimbrotus  and  others,   Homeric  Criticism. 

275 


276  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  rotundity  of  earth,  sun,  and  moon.  From  a  more  careful  study 
of  the  heavens  the  astronomer  Meton  of  Athens  devised  a  nineteen- 
year  cycle  for  bringing  the  lunar  and  solar  years  into  harmony.  In 
this  system  the  solar  year  was  estimated  at  365  5/19  days,  about  a 
half  hour  short  of  the  truth.  Although  he  was  permitted  to  set  up 
his  calendar  on  the  Pnyx,  it  was  not  adopted  by  his  own  people  till 
the  next  century;  and  it  extended  still  more  slowly  to  the  rest  of 
the  Hellenes.^ 

Medical  progress;  Hippocrates,  460-377.  From  the  time  of 
Pythagoras,  too,  notable  progress  was  made  in  medicine,  so  that  not 
even  the  Egyptian  physician  could  any  longer  compare  with  the 
Greek.  Although  cities  were  woefully  backward  in  sewerage  and 
general  sanitation,  it  may  be  set  down  to  their  credit  that  they  sup- 
ported from  the  public  purse  physicians  who  treated  the  citizens  free 
of  charge.  While  the  masses  still  believed  in  expelling  diseases  by 
charms  and  prayer,  or  by  visits  to  the  shrines  of  Asclepius,  the  med- 
ical profession  of  the  Periclean  age  had  eliminated  magic  and  every 
form  of  superstition  from  theory  and  practice,  and  stood  on  the  solid 
ground  of  scientific  observation  and  experiment.  Hippocrates,  of 
Cos,  the  most  celebrated  physician  of  the  ancient  world,  was  a  young 
man  in  the  beginning  of  his  practice  before  the  close  of  the  age.  In 
his  family  the  profession  had  been  hereditary,  as  was  generally  true 
of  trades  or  other  fields  of  technical  skill.  In  view  of  the  fact 
that  medical  knowledge  had  accumulated  at  the  temples  of  Asclepius, 
where  the  sick  and  the  maimed  sought  divine  healing,  it  is  significant 
of  the  scientific  spirit  of  Hippocrates  that  in  all  his  writings  he  never 
prescribes  a  visit  to  such  a  shrine.  "  Every  illness,"  he  declares, 
"has  a  natural  cause;  and  without  natural  causes,  nothing  ever 
happens."  He  lays  great  stress  on  hygiene,  especially  diet,  on  the 
principle  that  "  Nature  is  the  best  physician;  "  but  he  was  ready  to 
use  drugs  or  when  necessary  cutting  and  cauterizing :  "  Where  drugs 
fail,  steel  will  cure;  where  steel  fails,  fire  will  cure;  where  fire  fails, 
there  is  no  cure."  It  was  his  achievement  to  repel  from  his  domain 
all  assaults  of  sophists  and  speculative  philosophers,  and  while  main- 
taining and  expanding  the  scientific  method  of  his  predecessors,  to 
uphold  for  his  profession  the  noblest  ideals  of  devotion  to  duty  and 
to  right.  ^ 

Progress   in   philosophy;   Heracleitus    (died   475).     Not   only 

2  Zeller,  Pre-Socratic  Philosophy,  I.  454  f.  Diod.  xii.  36.  2  f. 

3  H.  Civ.  nos.  78-81. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  277 

special  branches  of  knowledge  were  bein^  cultivated,  but  great  prog- 
ress was  taking  place  in  the  philosophic  attitude  toward  the  world  as 
a  whole  and  its  problems.  With  Heracleitus  of  Ephesus,  who  flour- 
ished early  in  the  century,  philosophy  began  to  concern  itself  with 
the  motion,  change,  life  of  nature.  Not  Being  he  asserted,  but 
Becoming  is  the  fundamental  essence  of  things.  Meditation  on  this 
subject  led  him  to  imagine  a  world-ruling  reason  —  logos  —  which 
produces  the  ever-changing  phenomena  of  the  Universe.  This  con- 
trolling principle  can  be  apprehended  only  by  a  few  sages  like  him- 
self, who  also  possess  a  logos  similar  in  kind  to  that  of  the  Uni- 
verse whereas  the  masses  are  doomed  to  eternal  ignorance  and  folly. 
The  self-assertive  personality  of  this  philosopher,  added  to  the  evi- 
dent depth  of  his  mental  vision,  has  influenced  the  thought  of  the 
world  even  to  the  present  day,  while  his  obscure,  riddling  prophetic 
utterances,  along  with  his  doctrine  of  the  divine  and  human  logos, 
gave  pronounced  encouragement  to  mysticism.'* 

Continuation  of  the  Eleatics;  Empedocles,  about  495-430.  In 
spite  of  the  repudiation  of  Being  by  Heracleitus  and  his  insistence 
on  Becoming  as  the  sole  reality,  the  successors  of  Xenophanes  the 
Eleatic  continued  more  strongly  than  ever  to  deny  motion  and  change, 
and  to  claim  for  Being  alone  a  real  existence.  An  attempt  was  made 
to  harmonize  these  views  by  Empedocles  of  Acragas.  With  the  Elea- 
tics he  denied  absolute  origin  and  decay;  but  unlike  them,  he  be- 
lieved in  the  plurality  of  Being;  there  are,  he  asserted,  four  elements 
—  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire  —  of  which  all  things  are  composed. 
The  forces  that  combine  and  separate  them  are  Love  and  Hate,  the 
poetic  antecedents  of  attraction  and  repulsion.  In  this  way  he  was 
able  to  use  botli  Being  and  Becoming  in  his  theory  of  the  formation 
of  the  world.  He  paid  less  attention  to  the  character  of  his  ele- 
ments than  to  the  processes  of  nature.  In  accounting  for  plant  and 
animal  forms  he  enunciated  a  principle  crudely  anticipative  of  the 
"  survival  of  the  fittest."  At  the  same  time  he  introduced  into 
science  the  idea  of  "  elements,"  which  has  survived  to  our  own  age. 
Unlike  all  his  predecessors,  Empedocles  zealously  courted  popularity. 
He  was  a  politician,  a  leader  of  the  democracy  of  his  city,  a  prophet, 
and  a  physician  of  miraculous  power.  He  asserted  his.  ability  to  heal 
old  age,  to  raise  and  calm  the  winds,  produce  rain  and  drought,  and 
to  recall  the  dead  to  life.     Gorgeously  arrayed  in  brilliant  robes  and 

4  Bakewell,  p.  28-35. 


278  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

adorned  with  flowers,  he  passed  from  city  to  city,  everywhere  vener- 
ated as  a  god.  Finally,  as  his  friends  reported,  he  ascended  living  to 
heaven,  whereas  cynical  gossip  averred  rather  that  he  had  leaped 
into  the  crater  of  Mount  Aetna.^ 

The  atomists:  Leucippus  and  Democritus,  about  460-350. 
Every  new  philosopher,  after  learning  what  his  predecessors  had  to 
teach,  attempted  to  correct  the  faults  of  their  suppositions  or  methods 
with  a  view  to  approaching  nearer  to  the  truth.  Thus  it  was  that 
Leucippus,  seemingly  a  younger  contemporary  of  Empedocles,  began 
working  out  the  problem  of  that  thinker  in  a  more  scientific  way. 
Seeing  no  reason  why  Being  should  be  limited  to  precisely  four  ele- 
ments, he  assumed  instead  its  division  into  an  indefinite  number  of 
minute  indivisible  particles,  termed  atoms.  By  the  side  of  Being, 
which  he  interpreted  as  matter,  he  assumed  the  existence  of  Void  — 
empty  space  —  in  which  the  atoms  moved ;  in  place  of  the  mythical 
Love  and  Hate  he  substituted  Gravitation,  a  strictly  physical  force. 
With  Being,  Void,  and  Gravitation,  he  proceeded  to  explain  the  form- 
ation of  the  world,  the  processes  of  nature,  and  even  feeling  and 
thought  in  a  purely  mechanical  way.  The  atomic  theory,  afterward 
developed  into  a  system  by  his  famous  pupil  Democritus,  was  gener- 
ally denounced  by  the  ancients  as  materialistic,  hence  as  ethically 
demoralizing.  Appreciating  its  value,  however,  the  modern  world  has 
placed  it  in  the  foundation  of  science;  and  it  still  holds  true,  except- 
ing that  chemists  have  pushed  the  analysis  of  matter  far  beyond  the 
atom.** 

Anaxagoras,  about  500-428  More  in  accord  with  the  general  eth- 
ical direction  of  Greek  thought,  hence  more  influential,  was  Anaxa- 
goras, a  contemporary  of  Leucippus.  His  lasting  contribution  to 
philosophy  was  to  substitute  for  gravitation  an  infinite  and  omniscient 
Intelligence,  which  orders  all  things.  He  did  not  consciously  think 
of  it  as  a  person  or  as  a  deity  but  regarded  it  merely  as  a  directing 
force.  If  not  immaterial,  it  was  at  least  a  substance  unmixed  and  in 
quality  unique.  The  religious  and  ethical  consequences  of  his  theory 
however  were  left  mainly  to  future  thinkers  to  draw.^ 

Influence  of  the  philosophers;  their  limitations.  The  influence 
of  all  philosophers  was  thus  far  limited  to  narrow  circles  of  pupils. 

sXenophanes;   p.   153.     Parmenides  and  Zenon,   other  Eleatics;   Bakewell,   p.    11-27.     Em- 
pedocles;  p.  -13-8. 

6  Bakewell,  p.  57-66. 

7  Bakewell,  p.  49-56. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  279 

To  the  public  the  thinker  seemed  an  odd,  unnatural  being,  who  in 
his  search  for  the  undiscoverable  and  the  unpractical  neglected  every- 
thing that  the  Greek  held  dear  —  a  subject  for  ridicule  in  comedy  or 
for  prosecution  on  the  charge  of  atheism,  of  having  substituted  whirl- 
igig for  Zeus.'^  Those  who,  braving  public  opinion,  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  various  systems  of  thought,  were  generally  struck 
by  their  contradictions,  the  uncertain  foundations  on  which  they 
rested,  and  their  utter  uselessness  in  life.  Thus  far,  in  fact,  Hellenic 
thinkers,  while  discovering  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  science 
and  philosophy,  had  pursued  the  faulty  method  of  generalization  on 
the  basis  of  too  few  facts.  Little  more  could  be  accomplished  with- 
out a  careful  and  extensive  study  of  nature. 

Rhetoric  and  the  Sophists.  Meanwhile  with  the  rise  of  de- 
mocracy, involving  the  theory  of  human  equality,  a  demand  was  cre- 
ated for  a  technical  education  that  would  fit  any  man  who  wished 
for  public  life;  statesmanship,  once  based  on  inborn  gifts  of  speech 
and  political  wisdom,  had  to  be  democratized.  This  demand  called 
into  being  the  art  of  rhetoric,  whose  aim  was  to  equip  any  man, 
however  humble  his  talent,  for  public  speaking.  Shortly  after  the 
establishment  of  democracy  in  Syracuse  (466),  Corax  of  that  city 
developed  the  first  method  of  juridical  oratory;  and  from  his  school 
was  issued  the  earliest  practical  treatise  on  the  subject.  Rhetoric, 
however,  concerned  itself  with  nothing  beyond  the  communication  of 
thought  and  tlie  persuasion  to  a  belief  or  an  action;  it  had  to  be 
supplemented  by  a  working  knowledge  of  government  and  society. 
Hence  arose  a  class  of  men  who  professed  to  teach  not  only  rhetoric, 
but  all  knowledge  essential  to  the  statesman.  Such  instructors  in 
wisdom  were  termed  sophists.  They  travelled  from  city  to  city,  giving 
exhibitions  of  their  knowledge  and  of  their  skill  in  argument,  and 
imparting  instruction  to  all  who  desired  it,  and  who  were  able  to 
pay  the  required  fee.^ 

Protagoras,  about  485-410.  The  earliest  of  this  class,  and  by 
far  the  most  eminent,  was  Protagoras.  Though  vain  of  his  ability, 
he  seems  to  have  possessed  an  admirable  character  and  to  have  pur- 
sued high  aims.  "  Young  man,"  he  is  represented  as  saying  to  a 
prospective  pupil,  "  if  you  associate  with  me,  on  the  very  first  day  you 
will  return  home  a  better  man  than  you  came,  and  better  on  the  second 

8  Cf.  the  prosecution  of  Socrates  (p.  000)   and  Aristophanes,   Clouds.     Whirligig  (Etherial 
Vortex);   Clouds,  380  t. 

9  On  rhetoric;   Plato,  Gorgias.     On  sophistis,  Plato,  Protagoras. 


280  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

day  than  on  the  first,  and  better  every  day  than  -you  were  the  day 
before."  "  He  will  learn,"  the  teacher  continues,  "  what  he  came 
to  learn:  and  that  is  prudence  in  affairs  private  as  well  as  public;  he 
will  learn  to  order  his  own  house  in  the  best  manner,  and  he  will  be 
able  to  speak  and  act  for  the  best  in  the  affairs  of  the  state."  ^° 

Theory  of  knowledge  held  by  Protagoras.  The  speculations  of 
philosophers  had  led  many  to  doubt  the  possibility  of  knowledge. 
Abandoning  all  hope  of  discovering  the  one  true  essence  of  the  Uni- 
verse, Protagoras  boldly  declared  that  "  Man  is  the  measure  of  all 
things," —  in  other  words,  ^erything  is  precisely  what  it  seems  to  the 
individual.  In  two  respects  this  declaration  opened  a  new  era.  First 
it  directed  attention  to  the  mind  and  its  relation  to  the  outside  world, 
thus  paving  the  way  to  a  Mental  Philosophy,  or  Psychology.  Sec- 
ondly by  shifting  tlie  centre  of  attention  from  the  world  to  man  it 
gave,  along  with  many  cooperating  forces,  a  tremendous  impetus  to  the 
growth  of  individualism. 

Beginnings  of  political  and  social  science.  The  same  thinker 
had  a  theory  to  offer  as  to  the  basis  of  society  and  the  state.  The 
desire  of  self-preservation  gathered  mankind  into  cities;  "but  when 
they  were  gathered  together,  having  no  art  of  government,  they  harmed 
one  another,  and  were  again  in  process  of  dispersion  and  destruc- 
tion. Zeus  feared  that  the  entire  race  might  be  exterminated,  and 
therefore  sent  Hermes  to  them,  bearing  reverence  and  justice  to  be 
the  ordering  principles  of  cities  and  the  bonds  of  friendship  and 
conciliation.  Hermfs  asked  Zeus  how  he  should  impart  justice  and 
reverence  among  men ;  —  Should  he  distribute  them  as  the  arts  are 
distributed  —  th^t  is,  to  a  favored  few  only,  one  skilled  individual 
having  enough  of  medicine  or  of  any  other  art  for  many  unskilled 
ones?  '  Shall  this  be  the  manner  in  which  I  am  to  distribute  justice 
and  reverence  among  men,  or  shall  I  give  it  to  them  all  ?  '  '  To  all,' 
said  Zeus;  '  I  should  like  them  all  to  have  a  share;  for  cities  cannot 
exist  if  only  a  few  share  in  the  virtues,  as  in  the  arts.  And  further, 
make  a  law  by  my  order  that  he  who  has  no  part  in  reverence 
and  justice  shall  be  put  to  death,  for  he  is  a  plague  to  the 
state.'  "  "  Here  was  the  beginning  of  a  line  of  thought  which  led  to 
the  creation  of  Sociology  and  Political  Science.  Furthermore  Protag- 
oras and  his  contemporary  sophists  began  the  study  of   Grammar, 


10  Plato,  Protagoras,  318. 

11  Plat.   Prolog.  322.     Sophiss;   Bakewell,  p.   67-85. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  281 

I'honetics,   and   Philology  —  all   necessarily   in   a   rudimentary   way. 

Development  of  political  science;  Hippodamus.  Political 
science  was  taken  up  at  this  time  by  other  thinkers  and  carried  much 
farther.  It  was  directed  along  two  principal  lines:  first,  the  criti- 
cism of  existing  constitutions,  of  which  an  example  is  mentioned 
above;  second  the  creation  of  ideal  constitutions.  The  first  author  of 
such  a  constitution  was  Hippodamus,  the  famous  engineer,  who 
planned  Peiraeus  and  Thurii.^-  There  was  little  that  was  peculiar  in 
his  system  but  the  beginning  he  made  was  in  time  developed  by  more 
inventive  thinkers. 

Nature  versus  convention;  dissolution  of  the  traditional. 
Other  sophists  of  the  age  borrowed  from  Protagoras  his  theory  of 
knowledge  and,  with  varying  motive  and  ability,  pursued  the  same 
methods.  All  laid  stress  on  the  distinction  between  Nature,  whose 
laws,  observed  by  all  nations,  are  morally  binding,  and  convention 
—  man-made  customs  and  statutes,  for  which  they  cherished  no 
reverence.^^  The  effect  of  this  principle  was  to  dissolve  tradition, 
including  the  religion  and  the  moral  usages  of  the  fathers.  In  their 
view  tlie  past  was  an  age  of  ignorance  and  superstition;  the  present 
alone  was  worthy  of  consideration.  The  same  principle  tended 
equally  to  break  down  the  barriers  of  social  class  and  the  boundaries 
of  states.  By  nature  all  men  are  brothers,  and  it  is  wrong  for  one 
to  enslave  another.  Though  dissolvents  of  the  established  political, 
social  and  religious  order,  they  were  preparing  the  way  to  a  world- 
wide humanism,  to  more  friendly  relations  among  states,  to  federa- 
tions and  empire.  It  is  significant  that  one  of  the  greater  sophists, 
Gorgias,  a  Sicilian,  seeing  perhaps  dimly  the  need  of  a  universal 
language  of  culture,  adopted  for  that  purpose  the  Attic  dialect. 

II.     History  and  the  Drama 

History:  Herodotus,  about  484-425.  The  spirit  of  scientific 
inquiry  naturally  involved  an  eagerness  to  know  the  past  of  the  human 
race;  and  this  desire  created  History.  The  first  historian  whose 
works  have  been  preserved  was  Herodotus.  We  are  unable,  therefore, 
to  say  definitely  how  great  an  advance  he  made  beyond  Hecataeus, 
his  most  distinguished  predecessor.  Born  in  the  period  of  the  conflict 
with   Persia,  Herodotus  lived  through  the  age  of  Pericles   and  the 

12  T1.  Civ.  no.  63  ("Aristotle). 

13  Hippias,   in  Xen.   Mem.   iv.   4. 


282  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

earlier  years  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.  His  native  place  was  Hali- 
carnassus,  a  city  of  Dorian  stock  which  had  adopted  the  Ionian  tongue, 
and  which  lay  on  the  borderland  between  Hellas  and  the  Persian 
empire.  He  travelled  to  Egypt,  into  Asia  as  far  as  Susa,  to  the  coun- 
tries about  Pontus,  to  Italy  —  in  brief,  to  most  of  the  known  world. 
Ever)'where  he  gathered  material  which  found  its  way  into  his  work. 

Epic  origin  and  dramatic  influence.  As  the  genealogists  were 
the  literary  descendants  of  Hesiod,  Herodotus  was  a  son  of  Homer, 
and  his  history  might  well  be  described  as  a  great  prose-epic,  influenced 
to  some  extent  by  the  contemporary  drama.  A  brief  preface  ex- 
plains the  object  of  his  work:  "This  is  a  presentation  of  the  In- 
quiry —  Historia  —  of  Herodotus  of  Halicamassus  to  the  end  that 
time  may  not  obliterate  the  great  and  marvellous  deeds  of  Hellenes  and 
Barbarians,  and  especially  that  they  may  not  forget  the  causes  for 
which  they  waged  war  with  one  another."  ^*  In  his  search  for  causes 
he  narrates  from  earliest  times  the  notable  achievements  of  all  the 
peoples  who  were  involved  in  the  War, —  and  used  that  conflict  as 
the  unifying  element  of  his  work.  Treating  thus  of  substantially 
the  entire  known  world,  his  production  may  be  described  as  a  uni- 
versal history. 

Method  of  research.  So  far  as  we  know,  Herodotus  was  the  first 
to  apply  the  word  Histor>%  in  its  original  sense  of  inquiry,  to  this 
field  of  literature.  It  aptly  describes  his  method  of  gathering  in- 
formation by  personal  inquiry  of  those  who  were  supposed  to  know.^^ 
Often  unsatisfied  with  an  individual  source,  he  pursued  his  investi- 
gation among  various  authorities*,^"  thus  introducing  the  comparative 
method  of  research.  The  object  of  his  History,  as  he  conceived  it, 
required  him  to  tell  all  he  had  thus  heard:  "I  am  under  obliga- 
tion to  tell  what  is  reported,  though  I  am  not  bound  altogether  to  be- 
lieve it;  and  let  this  saying  hold  good  for  ever>'  narrative  in  the  His- 
tory." ^'  We  find  him,  accordingly,  often  expressing  doubt  as  to 
what  he  hears,  comparing  the  more  with  the  less  credible  account,  or 
reasoning  about  the  reliability  of  his  source.^*  Although  his  work 
abounds  in  myths  and  fictions,  and  though  he  was  often  at  the  mercy 
of  untrustworthy  informants,  he  was  far  from  credulous.  Even 
the  fictitious  tales,  whether  myths  or  more  recent  inventions,  are  of 

14  Hdt.  preface. 

15  Cf.  ii.  2. 

16  Sometimes  in  widely  separated  places;  cf.  ii.  3,  44. 
I7vii.    152. 

18  i.  75;   ii.  28,  45,  57,    131;   iii.   115;   iv.  25,  36,  45,   96,  106;   viii.    118  f. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  283 

greater  value  for  illustrating  the  thought  and  life  of  the  age  than 
would  have  been  a  dry  enumeration  of  facts,  however  well  ascer- 
tained. From  the  point  of  view  here  mentioned  this  feature  of  his 
work  is  a  positive  merit. 

Broad-mindedness.  Another  great  quality  of  Herodotus  is  his 
broad-mindedness,  to  which  his  cosmopolitan  birthplace  and  extensive 
travels  contributed.  He  could  understand  that  many  foreign  cus- 
toms were  at  least  as  good  as  the  Hellenic,^"  that  there  were  great 
and  admirable  characters  among  the  Barbarians,  and  that  mon- 
archy as  well  as  democracy  has  its  good  features.  A  comparison  of 
Egyptian  with  Hellenic  tradition  taught  him  the  emptiness  of  the 
claim  of  certain  Greeks  to  near  descent  from  a  god.-"  In  Hellenic 
tradition  the  gods  continued  to  connect  themselves  with  the  human 
race,  by  marriage  and  parentage,  to  nine,  eight,  or  even  six  centuries 
before  the  historian's  time,  whereas  Egyptian  chronology  removed 
such  phenomena  fifteen  thousand  years  into  the  past.  This  com- 
parative study  of  religion  convinced  Herodotus  tliat  his  countrymen  en- 
tertained many  false  notions  as  to  their  own  gods  and  as  to  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  human  race.-^ 

Religion.  Regarding  the  existence  of  the  gods,  however,  and  their 
providential  dealings  with  men,  the  historian  betrays  no  scepticism. 
With  other  enlightened  men  of  his  age  he  believes  in  a  Divine  Provi- 
dence," who  rules  the  world,  and  in  a  kindly  spirit  watching  over 
men,  revealing  his  will  through  omens,  dreams,  and  oracles.  The 
popular  opinion  that  God  is  envious  of  human  happiness,  and  there- 
fore always  sends  evil  to  counterbalance  good-luck  he  puts  in  the 
mouths  of  others,  but  does  not  himself  express.  Like  Aeschylus  he 
seems  to  believe  that  the  downfall  of  the  great  —  for  example  of 
Xerxes  —  is  in  punishment  for  insolence  which  unusual  prosperity 
often  induces.-^ 

Summary;  the  "Father  of  History."  In  religion,  therefore, 
though  casting  off  much  that  is  extraneous,  he  holds  firmly  to  the 
enlightened  orthodoxy  of  the  time,  while  in  moral  character  and  pur- 
pose he  stands  on  a  level  with  the  best  men  of  his  century.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  strict  historical  science,  while  advancing  beyond 

19  Cf.  iii.  38,  80-2. 

20  Through  sixteen  generations,  about  533  years;   ii.    143. 

21  ii.   142-6.  ,  ..    ,,„   ., 

22  The  Providence  of  the  Divinity;  iii.  108;  cf.  v.  92  c;  ix.  9.    Oracles;  vn.   139-43;   viii. 
77. 

23  i.  32;  iii.  40;  vii.  10  e,  46,  203;  viii.   109. 


284  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Hecatacus,  he  is  still  crude  and  imperfect,  whereas  his  broad  sympathy 
and  kindly  interest  in  everything  human,  his  high  religious  and  moral 
principles,  his  inexhaustible  fund  of  anecdotes  illustrative  of  customs 
and  character,  his  charming  style  and  genial  personality  have  entitled 
him  to  his  place  as  the  "  father  of  history,"  -*  and  have  given  his 
literary  production  a  universal  and  eternal  interest. 

Sophocles,  496-404.  The  religious  and  moral  ideas  of  the  age 
find  their  best  expression  in  the  great  Attic  dramatist  Sophocles. 
Literature  had  not  yet  become  a  profession;  as  Aeschylus  was  a  sol- 
dier, Sophocles  filled  public  offices.  Such  labors,  however,  did  not 
ruffle  the  serenity  or  disturb  the  comfort  of  an  easy  life.  The  prob- 
lems he  deals  with  are  less  gigantic  than  those  of  Aeschylus,  and 
his  solutions  are  as  a  rule  more  pacific.  There  are,  however,  many 
points  of  contact.  Like  Aeschylus  he  believes  in  the  omniscience  and 
almighty  power  of  God.  Joined  with  this  belief  is  the  conviction  that 
he  is  iust  and  merciful.  "  Zeus  himself,  in  all  that  he  doeth,  hath 
Mercy  for  a  sharer  of  his  throne."  -^  He  is  a  Providence,  to  whom 
man  may  confidently  leave  his  troubles.  "  Courage,  my  daughter, 
courage;  great  still  in  heaven  is  Zeus,  who  sees  and  governs  all;  leave 
thy  bitter  quarrel  to  him."  -®  As  guardians  of  right  the  powers  above 
are  punishers  of  misdeeds,  slow  but  sure  in  their  pursuit  of  the  un- 
righteous.^" 

The  Gods  of  country  and  of  kin.  Especially  near  and  dear  are 
the  local  spirits,  gods  of  the  land,  to  whom  the  returning  wanderer 
first  lifts  his  hands;  near  are  the  gods  of  one's  race,  of  one  blood 
with  the  worshipper,  they  who  founded  the  family  or  gens,  and  are 
most  concerned  for  its  preservation.-* 

Communication  between  gods  and  men;  scepticism.  Great  and 
good,  and  interested  in  the  welfare  of  man,  the  heavenly  powers  have 
found  means  of  communicating  their  will  to  him  through  visions, 
oracles,  and  the  mouths  of  seers.  It  is  natural,  however,  that  the 
scientific,  inquiring  spirit  of  the  Periclean  age,  involving  rationalism 
and  religious  doubt,  should  reflect  itself  in  the  troubled  life  of  the 
Sophoclean  dramas.  Oedipus,  though  by  nature  essentially  religious, 
doubts  the  prophetic  art  of  Teiresias,  and  seems  to  prove  his  point  by 
irrefutable  argument.     His  wife  Jocasta  rejects  even  the  oracle  of 

24  Cicero,  Laws,  i.   1.   5. 

25  Oedipus  in  Colonus  1267. 

26  Electro  173  f. 

27  Oed.   Col.    1536  f. 

28  Eleara  67;  Oed.  Col.  1333;  Antigone  938. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  285 

Apollo,  and  despising  all  moral  law,  advise  a  random,  heedless  life. 
More  excusable  is  the  long-suffering  Philoctetes:  "  No  evil  thing  has 
been  known  to  perish;  no,  the  gods  take  tender  care  of  such,  and  have 
a  strange  joy  in  turning  back  from  Hades  all  things  villainous  and 
knavish,  while  they  are  ever  sending  the  just  and  the  good  out  of  life. 
How  am  I  to  deem  of  these  things,  or  wherein  shall  I  praise  them, 
when  praising  the  ways  of  the  gods,  I  find  that  the  gods  are  evil?  "  ^^ 
But  in  the  end  all  these  doubts  and  complaints  are  overwhelmed  by 
the  catastrophe  of  the  drama;  prophetic  truth  and  divine  providence 
are  fully  vindicated.  Only  at  the  close  of  the  Trachiniae,  Hyllus, 
standing  over  the  body  of  his  father  Heracles,  who,  having  toiled 
through  life  for  the  good  of  mankind  and  innocent  of  wrong,  died  a 
death  of  unspeakable  agony,  pronounces  on  the  gods  a  judgment 
that  the  audience  carried  uncontroverted  to  their  homes:  "  Mark  the 
great  cruelty  of  the  gods  in  the  deeds  that  are  being  done.  They 
have  children,  and  are  hailed  as  fathers,  and  yet  they  can  look  upon 
such  sufferings.  No  man  foresees  the  future;  but  the  present  is 
fraught  with  mourning  for  us,  and  with  shame  for  the  powers  above, 
and  verily  with  anguish  beyond  compare  for  him  who  endures  this 
doom."  ^" 

Burial  and  its  rites.  Among  the  religious  rites  most  sacred  are 
those  attending  burial.  It  is  a  great  comfort  to  the  dying  man  to 
know  that  his  body  is  not  cast  forth  a  prey  to  dogs  and  birds.^^  A 
law  which  the  gods  have  established  requires  kinsmen  to  bury  their 
dead  with  all  due  ceremony;  for  burying  her  brother  in  obedience  to 
this  order  of  heaven  Antigone  was  condemned  to  interment  alive: 
"  I  will  bury  him;  well  for  me  to  die  in  doing  that.  I  shall  rest,  a 
loved  one,  with  him  whom  I  have  loved,  sinless  in  my  crime;  for  I 
owe  a  longer  allegiance  to  the  dead  than  to  the  living:  in  that  world 
I  shall  abide  forever."  ^-  It  was  the  duty  of  the  kin  to  wash  and 
deck  the  body,  to  lay  it  on  the  funeral  pyre,  to  place  the  ashes  in  the 
urn,  for  depositing  in  the  tomb.  Thereafter  it  was  fitting  at  intervals 
to  pour  offerings  on  the  mound,  and  encircle  it  with  garlands  of 
flowers,  and  place  thereon  locks  of  hair  freshly  cut  from  the  head.  No 
enemy  of  the  dead  should  join  in  these  ceremonies /^^ 

Future  life.     References  to  future  life  are  vague;  yet  one  who,  like 

29  Philoctetes  446  ff. 

30  Trachiniae  126  ff. 

31  Ajax  829. 

32  Ant.  71  ff. 

^Eledra,  431  ff.,  892  ff.,  1138  ff . ;  Ajax,  1393  ff. 


286  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Oedipus,  has  innocently  suffered,  may  hope  there  for  recompense. 
"Many  were  the  sorrows  that  came  to  him  without  cause;  but  in 
requital  a  just  God  shall  lift  him  up."  ^*  For  him  the  nether  ada- 
mant was  riven  in  love  that  he  might  pass  on  without  pain  to  the  world 
of  the  dead.  Sufferers  in  this  life  preferred  to  think  of  death  as 
sleep,  a  perfect  rest  from  pain.^^  Those  who  had  passed  on,  however, 
were  not  without  feeling  and  thought.  The  vexing  or  punishing  of 
their  foes  gave  them  pleasure,  and  they  had  praise  for  kinsfolk  who 
showed  piety  to  the  dead.  When  duly  invoked,  the  soul  came  in 
kindness  from  the  world  below  to  aid  a  helpless  kinswoman  against  a 
powerful  enemy. ^^ 

Ties  of  kin  and  marriage.  Strongest  of  all  ties  is  that  of  blood 
to  move  men  to  compassion  and  succor.  Piety  to  kin  is  a  higher  law 
than  allegiance  to  the  state,  even  as  eternity  surpasses  the  span  of 
earthly  life.  The  ideal  marriage  is  founded  on  love,  like  that  of  Anti- 
gone and  Haemon,  a  bond  whose  breaking  ruptures  life  itself.^' 
Love  is  the  greatest  of  conquerors,  of  destroyers:  "  It  is  a  power 
enthroned  in  sway  beside  the  eternal  laws."  ^* 

The  wife.  The  change  from  girlhood  to  wedded  life  involves  the 
assumption  of  grave  cares  and  responsibilities:  "Yes,  the  tender 
plant  grows  in  those  sheltered  regions  of  its  own;  and  the  Sun-God's 
heat  vexes  it  not,  nor  rain  nor  any  wind;  but  it  rejoices  in  its  sweet 
untroubled  being,  till  such  time  as  the  girl  is  called  a  wife,  and 
finds  her  portion  of  anxious  thoughts  in  the  night,  brooding  on 
danger  to  husband  or  to  children."  ^^  Her  all-absorbing  affection 
brooks  no  rival  in  her  husband's  favor.  Fierce  jealousy,  awakened 
by  the  slightest  cause,  drives  her  to  love-charms,  perchance  to  crime. 
But  the  good  wife  is  her  husband's  solace  and  his  discreet  counsellor; 
she  warns  him  to  avoid  danger  and  excessive  pride  or  anger,  and  urges 
upon  him  a  moderate,  conciliatory  temper.  Such  wives  were  Jocasta 
and  even  more,  Tecmessa.  It  is  natural  for  the  husband  to  honor 
his  wife  above  his  fellow-citizens  and  to  respect  her  prudence.  But 
the  plot  demands  that,  as  the  catastrophe  draws  near,  the  hero,  his 
spirit  aflame  with  misguided  passion,  should  brutally  override  her 
dearest  wishes  in  the  mad  onrush  to  his  doom.*"     Overcome  by  grief, 

34  Oedipus  in  Colonus  1560  ff.,  1663  ff. 

Z^  Ajax  83  ff. ;  Electra  1170  ff. ;   Trachiniae  1039  ff. 

36£;ert.  353  ff.,  967  ff . ;  cf.   448  ff..  482  ff. 

37  Cf.  Elect.  246  ff.  et  passim;  Antigone  71  ff. 

38  Ant.  781  ff. 

39  Track.    144   ff. 

40  Track.  375  ff.,  490  ff . ;  Oed.  Tyr.  700  f.;  Ajax,  535  ff. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  287 

she  slays  herself.  Her  death  is  the  mortal  stab  in  a  heart  already 
wounded  with  insufferable  woes.  "  Alas,"  exclaims  Creon,  when  he 
hears  the  awful  news  of  his  wife's  suicide,  "  I  was  already  as  dead 
and  thou  hast  smitten  me  anew!  What  is  this  new  message  that  thou 
bringest  me  —  woe,  woe  is  me!  —  of  a  wife's  doom,  of  .slaughter 
heaped  on  slaughter?"*^ 

Not  every  marriage  is  desirable;  the  evil  wife  —  sharer  of  the 
home  —  is  a  joy  that  soon  grows  cold ;  for  no  wound  could  strike 
deeper  than  a  false  friend,*^  like  the  hardened  murderess  Clytem- 
nestra,  who  treacherously  slew  her  husband  and  keeps  the  day  of  his 
death  with  dance  and  song,  and  "  month  by  month  sacrifices  sheep  to 
the  gods  who  have  wrought  her  deliverance."  *^ 

Woman's  condition  has  declined.  The  condition  of  woman  has 
sunk  somewhat  below  the  level  of  the  preceding  generation.  It  is 
true  that  girls  are  represented  as  walking  freely  out  of  doors  with  no 
one  to  attend,  and  grown  women  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  councils 
of  family  and  state,  yet  these  activities  belong  to  the  theatrical  tra- 
dition. Though  not  wholly  a  direct  reflection  of  the  life  of  the  age, 
at  least  they  do  not  offend  its  taste;  hence  they  call  for  no  apology 
from  the  poet.  The  decline  is  seen  mainly  in  the  increasing  empha- 
sis on  the  inferiority  of  women  to  men  in  strength  and  efficiency,  and 
on  the  desirability  of  their  remaining  at  home  and  of  observing  si- 
lence. Thus  the  case  is  put  to  Electra  by  her  gentler  sister :  "  Seest 
thou  not,  thou  art  a  woman,  not  a  man,  and  no  match  for  thy  ad- 
versaries in  strength ?"  ■**  Elsewhere  the  same  thought  is  echoed: 
"  Nay  we  must  remember  that  we  were  bom  women,  who  should  not 
strive  with  men."  *^  King  Creon  thinks  it  dastardly  to  yield  to 
woman's  will  or  persuasion.  Contemptible  is  the  victory  won  with 
woman's  aid.^*^  Furthermore  that  a  girl  should  walk  in  public  un- 
protected is  decried  as  fraught  with  peril;  far  better  to  remain  in 
doors  than  range  at  large.*"  Yet  even  this  seclusion  is  made  their 
reproach  by  one  of  their  sex:  "Nay,  by  ever-virgin  Artemis,"  ex- 
claims Electra,  "  I  will  never  stoop  to  fear  women,  stay-at-homes, 
vain  burdens  of  the  ground!  "  *^     Akin  to  this  sentiment  is  the  pro- 

iiA7it.  USA  ff.   (Eurydice). 

42  Ant.   649  ff. 

43  Elect.  277  ff. 

44  Electra  997  f. 

45  Antigone  61   f. 

46  Ant.  678  f. ;  cf.  525,  748;  Elect.  301  f. 

47  Oed.  Col.  745  f . ;  Ant.  478  f. 

48  Elect.  1239  f. 


288  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

verb,  "  Silence  graces  woman,"  *^  no  less  widely  entertained  for  being 
uttered  by  a  madman.  Notwithstanding  adverse  sentiments  and  re- 
pressive customs,  actual  women,  only  in  a  less  degree  than  the  char- 
acters of  the  stage,  retain  their  share  of  speech,  their  participation  in 
religious  festivals;  and  while  losing  ground  in  society  beyond  the 
home,  make  compensatory  gains  in  influence  within  the  family  circle. 

The  love  of  kin.  The  bond  of  love  and  of  comradeship  is  not- 
ably strong  between  daughter  and  father.  The  saddest  thought  of 
blind  Oedipus  in  contemplating  exile  is  that  of  leaving  his  daughters: 
"  My  two  girls,  poor  hapless  ones,  who  never  knew  my  table  spread 
apart,  or  lacked  their  father's  presence,  but  ever  in  all  things  shared 
my  daily  bread  —  I  pray  thee,  care  for  them."  ^°  The  same  union  of 
love  and  duty,  however,  runs  through  the  family,  constraining  the 
members  to  forgiveness  of  anger  and  of  even  greater  vexations. ^^ 
Thus  Antigone  reminds  her  father  of  his  duty  toward  an  erring  son: 
"Thou  art  his  sire;  so  that  even  if  he  were  to  wrong  thee  with  the 
most  impious  of  foul  wrongs,  father,  it  is  not  lawful  for  thee  to 
wrong  him  again."  ^' 

Obedience  to  parents.  A  most  essential  element  of  such  a  family 
is  respect  for  parents.  Obedience  to  a  father  is  the  best  of  laws.^^ 
The  duty  of  toiling  for  a  parent  in  need  is  perfectly  fulfilled  for  her 
exiled  father  by  Antigone:  "  From  the  time  her  tender  age  was 
passed  and  she  came  to  a  woman's  strength,  she  hath  ever  been  the 
old  man's  guide  in  weary  wanderings,  oft  roaming  hungry  and  bare- 
foot through  the  wild  wood,  oft  sore-vexed  by  rains  and  scorching 
heat,  but  regarding  not  the  comforts  of  home,  if  so  her  father  should 
have  tendance."  ^* 

The  warping  of  family  affection.  Human  limitations.  These 
ideal  relations  among  kinsmen  may  be  fearfully  warped  by  sin.  The 
doctrine  of  the  hereditary  curse  —  its  causes,  operation,  and  results  — 
is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  Aeschylus.  The  inner  force  that 
impels  man  to  crime  is  Insolence,  a  disposition  to  flout  divine  law.^^ 
With  all  his  splendid  powers  of  mind,  man's  chief  lesson,  therefore, 
is  to  learn  his  human  limitations.  He  must  not  think  himself  a  god 
in  power,  or  kill  fair  hope  by  fretting  over  transitory  ills.     "  Remem- 

49  Aj.  293. 

50  Oed.   Tyr.   1462  ff. 
5XAnt.  98  f. ;  Ocd.  Col.  325  ff. 

52  Oed.  Col.   1189  ff. 

53  Trachiniae  11  "7  f . ;   cf.  Antigone  635  ff. 

54  0f(i.    Col.   345   ff. 

55  Ajax  758  ff. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  289 

ber  that  the  son  of  Cronos  himself,  the  all-disposing  king,  hath  not 
appointed  a  painless  lot  for  mortals.  Sorrow  and  joy  come  round  to 
all,  as  the  Bear  moves  in  his  circling  path."  ^^  Let  the  prosperous 
and  the  powerful  keep  in  mind  the  instability  of  their  condition: 
"  There  is  no  estate  of  mortal  life  that  I  would  ever  praise  or  blame 
as  settled.  Fortune  raises  and  Fortune  humbles  the  lucky  or  un- 
lucky from  day  to  day,  and  no  one  can  prophesy  to  men  concerning 
those  things  that  are  appointed."  ^''  What  is  ordained  we  can  by  no 
means  escape:  "Dreadful  is  the  mysterious  power  of  fate;  there  is 
no  deliverance  from  it  by  wealth  or  by  war,  by  fenced  city  or  by  dark 
sea-beaten  ships."  ^^  "  Therefore  while  our  eyes  wait  to  see  the  des- 
tined final  day,  we  must  call  no  one  happy  who  is  of  mortal  race, 
until  he  hath  crossed  life's  border  free  from  pain."  ^^  Oftimes  in- 
deed the  cup  of  life  holds  so  much  bitterness  as  to  make  us  doubt 
the  worth  of  living :  "  Not  to  be  bom  is,  past  all  prizing,  best ;  but 
when  a  man  hath  seen  the  light,  this  is  next  best  by  far,  that  with  all 
speed  he  should  go  thither,  whence  he  hath  come." 

Sufferings  are  providential.  "  For  when  he  hath  seen  youth  go 
by,  with  its  light  follies,  what  troublous  affliction  is  strange  to  his  lot, 
what  suffering  is  not  therein?  —  envy,  factions,  strife,  battles,  and 
slaughters;  and  last  of  all,  age  claims  him  for  her  own  —  age  dis- 
praised, infirm,  unsociable,  unfriended,  with  which  all  woe  of  woe 
abides."  ^'^  But  sufferings  come  in  the  providence  of  God  in  the 
working  out  of  destiny;  he  implants  in  man  wisdom,  the  supreme 
part  of  happiness,  and  reverence  toward  the  powers  above.  "  Great 
words  of  prideful  men  are  ever  punished  with  great  blows,  which  in 
old  age  teach  the  chastened  to  be  wise."  ^^  Moreover  the  afflictions 
of  fellow-men  afford  an  opportunity  for  service:  "Man's  noblest 
task  is  to  help  others  by  his  best  means  and  powers."  ^- 

Citizen  and  state.  Man  not  only  lives  his  individual  and  family 
life,  but  forms  part  of  the  state.  "  Our  country  is  the  ship  that  bears 
us  safe,"  ^^  and  only  in  her  well-being  can  the  citizens  find  pros- 
perity. It  behoves  them,  then,  to  prize  the  fatherland  above  all  other 
ties;  for  its  security  depends  upon  the  citizen:     "When  he  honors 

50  Trachiniae  126  it. 

r>7  A  )it.  1156  ff. ;  cf.   Track.  943  f. 

ns  A>!t.  951  ff. 

59  Oed.   Tyr.  1528  ff. 

GO  Oed.  Col.   1225  ff. 

61  Ant.  1350  ff. 

62  Oed.   Tyr.  314  f. 

63  Ant.  189  t. 


290  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  laws  of  the  land  and  that  Justice  which  he  hath  sworn  by  the 
gods  to  uphold,  proudly  stands  his  city;  no  city  hath  he  who,  for 
his  rashness,  dwells  with  sin."  °'*  Not  only  in  self-interest  but 
through  gratitude  for  nurture  and  protection  does  the  citizen  owe  the 
state  a  kindly  loyalty.''^ 

Civic  virtue.  His  training  in  civic  obligation  begins  in  the  fam- 
ily: "He  who  does  his  duty  in  his  own  household  will  be  found 
righteous  in  the  state  as  well."  In  opposition  to  the  rising  spirit  of 
fault-finding  with  government  and  magistrates  there  is  enjoined  a 
strict  obedience  to  authority:  "Never  can  laws  have  prosperous 
course  in  a  city  where  dread  hath  no  place.  .  .  .  But  where  there  is 
license  to  insult  and  to  act  at  will,  doubt  not  that  such  a  state,  though 
favoring  gales  have  sped  her,  some  day  at  last  sinks  into  the  depths."  ^^ 
It  is  urged  with  reason  that,  right  or  wrong,  the  legitimate  authority 
should  be  obeyed.''^ 

The  competent  should  rule.  In  public  life  there  is  need  of  able 
men  to  lead:  "The  small  without  the  great  can  ill  be  trusted  to 
man  the  walls;  lowly  leagued  with  great  will  prosper  best,  great 
served  by  less.  But  foolish  men  cannot  learn  these  truths.  Before 
their  mighty  leader  they  cower  still  and  dumb;  behind  his  back  they 
rail  against  him,  and  chatter  like  flocking  birds."  ^*  Here  we  seem 
to  discover  the  incipient  ochlocracy  bridled  but  restive  under  the 
strong  rule  of  Pericles.  Though  favoring  the  rule  of  the  ablest, 
Sophocles  is  no  friend  of  tyranny.^^  His  ideal  government  is  that  of 
a  magistrate,  whatever  his  title,  chosen  by  the  people  on  the  ground 
of  ability  and  of  proved  loyalty  to  the  state  —  no  god  indeed,  but 
"  the  first  of  men,  both  in  life's  common  chances,  and  when  mortals 
have  to  do  with  more  than  man,"  "°  in  whose  presence  even  plain  folk 
may  enjoy  free  speech.  Such  a  magistrate  is  a  man  of  large  sym- 
pathy as  well  as  of  prudence,  who  cares  for  his  fellow-citizens  as  a 
father  for  his  children,  whose  pride  is  in  their  well-being,  whose 
heart  goes  out  to  them  in  distress :  "  Well  wot  I  that  ye  suffer  all ; 
yet  sufferers  as  ye  are,  there  is  not  one  of  you  whose  sufferings  are 
as  mine.  Your  pain  comes  on  each  one  of  you  for  himself  alone,  and 
for  no  other;  but  my  soul  mourns  at  once  for  the  city,  and  for  myself, 

64 Ant.  367  ff. 

65  Oed.  Tyr.  323  f. 

66  Ajax  1073  ff. 

67  A  nt.   663  ff. 

68  Aj.   159  ff. 

69  Cf.  Ant.   734  ff. 
10  Oed.   Tyr.  31  ff. 


THE  ACxE  OF  PERICLES  291 

and  for  you."  "^  Such  a  ruler,  by  precept  and  example,  leads  the 
citizens  on  the  way  to  virtue,  bearinfj;  for  their  general  character  a 
great  load  of  responsibility;  for  a  city,  as  an  army,  "  hangs  wholly  on 
its  leaders;  and  when  men  do  lawless  deeds,  it  is  the  counsel  of  their 
leaders  that  corrupts  them."  "- 

Interstate  relations.  War  and  peace.  Particularly  in  their  re- 
lations with  each  other,  governments  have  need  of  prudent  guidance 
for  averting  useless  wars,  since  "  full  many  states  lightly  enter  on 
offence,  even  though  their  neighbor  lives  aright."  "  It  is  equally  a 
duty  to  refrain  from  usurping  power  over  voluntary  allies."*  Of  war 
for  the  protection  of  the  oppressed  the  poet  heartily  approves.  On 
such  an  occasion  he  can  glory  in  the  Athenian  knighthood,  in  the 
flash  of  steel  and  the  brazen  clangor  of  battle,  and  can  long  for  a 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  conflict:  "  O  to  be  a  dove  with  swift  strength 
as  the  storm,  that  I  might  reach  an  airy  cloud  with  gaze  lifted  above 
the  fray!  "  "  In  his  eyes,  however,  war  is  less  a  cause  of  glory  than 
a  bringer  of  sorrow  for  the  slaughter  of  men,  the  ruin  of  cities,  the 
enslavement  and  misery  of  captive  women.'"  War  is  essentially  an 
evil  as  it  carries  off  the  fittest,  passing  by  the  weakling  and  the 
coward:  "  To  be  brief,  I  would  tell  thee  this:  war  takes  no  evil  man 
by  choice,  but  good  men  always."  "  Better,  then,  that  all  wars  should 
cease : 

"  When,  ah  when,  will  the  number  of  the  restless  years  be  full,  at  what 
term  will  they  cease,  that  bring  on  me  the  unending  woe  of  a  warrior's  toils 
throughout  the  wide  land  of  Troy,  for  the  sorrow  and  the  shame  of  Hellas? 

"  Would  that  the  man  had  passed  into  the  depths  of  the  sky,  or  to  all- 
receiving  Hades,  who  taught  the  Hellenes  to  league  themselves  for  war  in 
hateful  arms !  Ah,  those  toils  of  his,  from  which  so  many  toils  have  sprung ! 
Yea,  it  was  he  who  wrought  the  ruin  of  men."  "* 

Lessons  from  Sophocles.  Many  are  the  lessons  that  the  poet  has 
for  mankind,  but  the  sum  of  all  is  this:  Love  for  our  fellow-men, 
thoughts  meet  for  mortals,  inviolate  reverence  for  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing, and  wisdom,  the  chief  part  of  happiness.  They  who  have  learned 
these  lessons  are  loved  of  the  powers  above. 

71  Oed.   Tyr.  58  ff. 

72  Philoctetes  386  ff. 

73  Oed.  Col.   1534  f. 

74  Aj.   1099  ff. 

75  Oed.  Col.  1081  f. 

76  Track.  2-40  ff. ;  281  ff.,  298  ff, 

77  Philoct.  435  f. 

78  Ajax  US5  ff. 


292  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

III.     The  Personality  or  Pericles  and  His   Interpretation 

OF  Athenian  Character 

Pericles  in  relation  to  his  age.  In  our  effort  to  penetrate  into 
the  mind  and  character  of  the  Athenians  we  are  aided  by  a  study  of 
the  man  who  not  only  brought  his  community  to  a  summit  of  civiliza- 
tion never  before  reached  by  the  human  race,  but  also  incorporated 
and  expressed  in  his  own  personality  the  highest  ideals  of  his  age. 
Born  of  a  union  of  two  illustrious  gentes,  he  inherited  the  inspiring 
traditions  of  both.  His  father's  patriotic  achievements  in  the  war 
with  Persia,  the  great  constitutional  work  of  his  mother's  kin,  the 
thrilling  events  of  his  childhood  and  youth  attending  the  struggle  for 
freedom  and  the  founding  of  empire,  were  in  him  transmuted  into 
force  and  nobility  of  character  directed  to  the  political,  intellectual, 
and  moral  elevation  of  his  country. 

His  education.  Pericles  enjoyed  the  best  education  possible  in 
that  age.  Music,  which  included  not  only  lessons  on  the  lyre  but 
literature  and  other  elementary  studies,  was  taught  him  by  Damon, 
who  became  his  chief  political  adviser.  The  aristocratic  youth  prac- 
ticed singing  and  lyre-playing,  not  chiefly  with  a  view  to  entertaining 
himself  or  his  friends  in  social  gatherings,  but  for  the  moral  cultiva- 
tion of  his  feelings.  The  lyric  song  he  learned,  with  its  triple  theme 
God,  Blood,  and  Fatherland,  stirred  in  the  singer  and  the  hearers,  not 
individualistic  but  civic  emotions.  Among  the  teachers  of  his  riper 
years  was  Zeno,  the  Eleatic  philosopher,  the  creator  of  dialectic  — 
pointed,  systematic  conversation  directed  to  the  refutation  of  error 
and  to  the  establishment  of  truth.  More  influential  was  Anaxagoras 
of  Clazomenae,  mentioned  above.  These  philosophers  freed  his  mind 
irom  superstition  by  directing  it  to  a  search  for  natural  causes.  In- 
herent tendency,  under  philosophic  cultivation,  developed  into  a  seren- 
ity of  temper,  which  no  insult  or  abuse  could  ruffle.'^ 

His  oratory.  To  the  same  combination  of  natural  character  and 
instruction  is  due  his  lofty,  dignified  eloquence,  which  earned  for  him 
the  name  Olympian.  Though  he  had  no  instruction  in  rhetoric, 
which  was  introduced  into  Athens  too  late  for  his  service,  he  took 
great  pains  with  his  language,  and  before  delivering  a  speech,  he 
always  prayed  that  nothing  unbecoming  might  fall  from  his  lips.  His 
delivery  was  statuesque;  scarcely  a  gesture  ruffled  the  folds  of  his 

■^S  Plut.  Per.  4  ff. 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  293 

mantle.  No  theatricality  hut  the  weight  of  his  words,  the  majesty  of 
his  person,  his  deep  earnestness,  and  the  confidence  of  the  people  in 
his  patriotism,  wisdom,  and  incorru])tibility  carried  conviction.'"' 

His  estate.  In  order  to  concentrate  his  whole  energy  upon  public 
affairs,  he  gave  over  the  management  of  his  inherited  estate  to  an 
able,  trusty  slave,  Evangelus,  who  sold  all  the  i)roduce  in  a  lump, 
and  bought  for  the  family  the  necessities  of  life  as  they  were  re- 
quired. The  method  was  far  from  economical,  but  Pericles  was 
content  with  a  mere  subsistence  from  his  estate,  without  increase  or 
diminution  of  its  value.     Such  was  the  ideal  of  his  social  class. *^ 

His  family;  Aspasia.  Pericles'  wife  was  a  kinswoman,  Telcsippe, 
the  mother  of  his  sons  Xanthippus  and  Paralus.  But  as  they  could 
not  live  happily  together,  Pericles  at  her  request  found  her  another 
husband.^-  Afterward  he  was  attracted  to  Aspasia,  a  highly  accom- 
plished woman  from  ISIiletus.  As  Athenian  women  had  merely  a 
domestic  education  and  were  now  kept  more  strictly  at  home  than 
they  had  been  in  the  past,  a  class  of  non-Athenian  women,  termed 
"  companions,"  better  educated  and  more  attractive  than  the  natives, 
usurped  their  place  in  the  society  of  men.  Under  his  own  law  of  451 
Pericles  could  contract  no  more  than  an  inferior  marriage  with  As- 
pasia, which  excluded  the  children  from  the  citizenship.  They  had  a 
son  Pericles,  who  was  given  the  franchise  by  a  special  vote  of  the  as- 
sembly. This  union  proved  most  happy,  but  the  high-born  dames  of 
Athens,  regarding  Aspasia  as  a  social  outcast,  at  first  refused  to  visit 
her,  though  in  time  they  overcame  this  prejudice.  Socrates  and  other 
brilliant  men  of  the  age  gathered  at  her  house  to  discuss  questions 
of  rhetoric,  philosophy,  and  practical  life  with  her,  and  brought  their 
wives,  that  they,  too,  might  benefit  by  the  conversation.®^ 

The  best  interpreter  of  his  age.  No  one  could  doubt  the  compe- 
tence of  this  man  of  clear,  penetrating  vision  to  interpret  the  char- 
acter and  ideals  of  his  people.  This  task  he  sets  before  himself  in 
the  Funeral  Oration  delivered  over  those  who  fell  in  the  first  year  of 
the  great  war  with  Peloponnesus,  431.®*  As  given  by  Thucydides, 
the  essential  ideas  are  those  of  the  statesman,  but  the  style  is  certainly 
that  of  the  historian,  who  in  inserting  the  oration  in  his  narrative 

80  Plut.   Per.  8. 

81  Plut.   Per.   16. 

82  Plut.    Per.   24. 

8.3  Plut.  Per.  24;  Xen.  Mem.  ii.  6.  36;  Ecoti.  3.   14;  Plat.  Menex.  235  e. 
84  Thuc.  ii.   35-46  (H.   Civ.  no.  64);   see  also  the  translation   by  Zimmern,   Greek  Com- 
monwealth, 196  ff. 


294  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

after  the  close  of  the  war,  undoubtedly  took  some  liberty  even  with 
the  thought.  However  that  may  be,  it  forms  one  of  the  most  precious 
documents  in  the  history  of  civilization. 

Democracy  in  government  and  society.  First  he  explains  the 
political  constitution  and  the  manner  of  life  in  which  the  Athenians 
rose  to  greatness.  The  government  is  called  a  democracy,  "  for  the 
administration  is  in  the  hands  of  the  many,  not  of  the  few.  But 
while  the  law  secures  equal  justice  to  all  alike,  talent  is  also  recog- 
nized; and  when  a  citizen  is  in  any  way  distinguished,  he  is  pre- 
ferred for  the  public  service,  not  as  a  matter  of  privilege,  but  on 
grounds  of  excellence  alone.  Neither  is  poverty  a  bar,  but  a  man 
may  benefit  his  country  whatever  be  the  obscurity  of  his  condition."  ^^ 
In  social  relations  prevails  a  large  measure  of  liberty.  "  As  we  have 
given  free  play  to  all  in  our  public  life,  so  in  our  private  intercourse 
we  are  not  suspicious  of  one  another,  nor  angry  with  our  neighbor 
if  he  does  what  he  likes;  we  put  on  no  sour  looks  at  him,  which, 
though  they  leave  no  mark,  are  unpleasant.  Open  and  friendly  in 
our  private  intercourse,  we  cherish  a  spirit  of  reverence  in  our  public 
acts;  we  are  kept  from  wrong  by  respect  for  authority  and  the  laws, 
particularly  those  for  the  protection  of  the  oppressed."  ®" 

A  happy  environment.  He  gives  a  reason  for  the  festivals, 
more  numerous  and  splendid  than  in  any  other  Hellenic  city.  "  We 
have  not  forgotten  to  provide  our  spirits  with  many  relaxations  from 
toil;  there  are  regular  games  and  festivals  throughout  the  year;  our 
home  life  is  refined;  and  the  delight  we  daily  feel  in  all  these  bless- 
ings helps  banish  sadness."  *^  Happiness  was  not  an  end  in  itself 
but  a  condition  of  collective  efficiency.  With  all  the  drudgery  of 
their  training,  the  Lacedaemonians,  he  contends,  are  unequal  in  war 
to  us,  who  without  laborious  drill,  win  by  light  hearts  and  valor. 
Their  ideals  are  purely  military;  ours  are  of  a  nobler  type.*^  "  Our 
city  is  equally  admirable  in  peace  and  war;  for  we  are  lovers  of  the 
beautiful,  yet  simple  in  our  tastes,  and  we  cultivate  the  mind  without 
loss  of  manliness.  Wealth  to  us  is  not  mere  material  for  vainglory 
but  an  opportunity  for  achievement.  With  us  to  avow  poverty  is  no 
disgrace;  the  true  shame  is  in  doing  nothing  to  avoid  it."  ^^  On 
such   principles  the  Athenians  have   attained   to   a  high   degree  of 

85Thuc.  ii    37. 

86  Loc.  cit. 

87  II.  38. 

88  II.  39. 

89  II.  40. 


THE  AGE  OF  TERICLES  29S 

mentality  and  sane  juclgment:  "  if  few  of  us  are  originators,  we  are 
all  sound  judges  of  policy.  In  our  opinion  the  great  impediment  to 
action  is  not  deliberation,  but  the  want  of  knowledge  gained  by  dis- 
cussion preparatory  to  action.  P'or  we  have  the  peculiar  power  of 
thinking  before  we  act  and  of  acting  too,  whereas  other  men  are 
courageous  from  ignorance  Ijut  hesitate  on  reflection." '-"'  A  great 
imperial  and  international  policy,  such  as  Pericles  was  following,  had 
to  rest,  not  on  narrow,  ignorant  selfishness,  but  on  a  kindly,  liberal 
spirit.  "  In  doing  good  we  are  unlike  others,  for  we  make  our 
friends  by  conferring,  not  by  receiving  favors.  .  .  .  We  alone  benefit 
our  neighbors  not  upon  a  calculation  of  interest  but  in  the  confidence 
of  freedom  and  in  a  frank  and  fearless  spirit."  ^^  On  all  these 
grounds  the  citizens  and  the  state  afford  a  pattern  for  other  Greeks. 
"  In  a  word,  I  claim  that  Athens  is  the  school  of  Hellas,  and  that  the 
individual  Athenian  in  his  own  person  clearly  possesses  the  power  of 
adapting  himself  to  the  most  varied  activities  with  the  utmost  versa- 
tility and  grace."  °'" 

Civic  education;  Music  and  the  drama.  To  meet  the  varied 
requirements  of  the  citizen  in  this  intense  democracy,  in  which  more 
than  in  any  other,  life  was  civic  duty,  a  man  had  to  be  well  educated, 
not  in  books  but  in  public  affairs.  He  began  his  training  on  a  small 
scale  in  the  deme,  where  local  affairs  were  freely  discussed  in  town 
meeting,  and  local  offices  gave  a  taste  of  communal  management. 
Further  experience  he  gained  in  one  or  more  of  the  thousand  admin- 
istrative offices  of  the  state  and  empire,  and  in  the  ecclesia  and  law- 
courts.  But  practical  education,  in  itself  narrow  and  sordid,  must  be 
broadened  and  elevated  by  ideals.  The  Athenians  needed  the  teach- 
ings and  the  inspiration  of  their  great  poets;  and  this  instruction 
they  received  from  the  choral  songs  at  festivals  and  particularly 
from  the  drama  presented  in  the  tlieatre.  More  than  sixty  days, 
distributed  throughout  the  year,  were  given  to  festivals,  including 
dramatic  exhibitions,  to  which  must  be  added  the  holidays  of  the 
demes.  The  wealthy  citizens  provided  the  entertainments,  spending 
on  them  many  times  the  sum  required  by  the  state,  and  receiving  their 
reward  in  the  respect  and  the  political  support  of  the  masses.^^  Every 
year,  too,  from  one  to  two  thousand  boys  and  men  appeared  before 

90  Loc.   cit. 

91  Loc.  cit. 

92  II.    41. 

93  Lysias,  Defence  against  a  Charge  of  Bribery,   1   ff. 


296  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  public  in  choruses  for  tlie  dramatic  and  other  exhibitions  which 
required  them.  These  choral  services,  as  well  as  others,  generally 
rotated  among  the  qualified  citizens,  thus  giving  all,  or  nearly  all,  a 
trainmg  in  music  and  some  study  of  literature.  Hence  we  may  un- 
derstand why  it  was  that  the  Athenian  public  in  the  theatre  could 
follow  the  great  tragedies  of  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles,  and  could  ap- 
preciate literary  allusions  and  fine  points  in  music,  which  have  been 
irrecoverably  lost  to  the  world. 

Intellectual  and  moral  elevation.  Not  simply  the  artistic  taste 
of  the  community  but  the  intellectual  keenness  and  grasp  of  these  men 
who  could  follow  the  arguments  of  orators  on  complicated  questions 
of  foreign  policy,  as  well  as  the  great  dramas  of  the  age,  were  won- 
derful. From  the  entire  Hellenic  race,  more  highly  endowed  than 
any  other,  a  happy  combination  of  circumstances  had  selected  the 
Athenian  community,  and  had  lifted  it  equally  high  above  the  gen- 
eral Greek  level.  The  moral  plane  of  life,  too,  was  nothing  mean. 
This  fact  we  discover  in  the  extreme  attention  paid  to  manners  and 
morals  in  education,  from  infancy  through  childhood  and  youth,  by 
parents,  nurse,  governor  and  teachers.  "  Education  and  admonition 
commence  in  the  first  years  of  childhood,  and  last  to  the  very  end  of 
life.  Mother  and  nurse  and  father  and  tutor  are  vying  with  one 
another  about  the  improvement  of  the  child  as  soon  as  ever  he  is 
able  to  understand  what  is  being  said  to  him;  he  cannot  say  or  do 
anything  without  their  setting  forth  to  him  that  this  is  just  and  that 
is  unjust;  this  is  honorable,  that  is  dishonorable;  this  is  holy,  that 
is  unholy;  do  this  and  abstain  from  that.  If  he  obeys,  well  and 
good:  if  not,  he  is  straightened  by  threats  and  blows,  like  a  piece  of 
bent  or  warped  wood.  At  a  later  stage  they  send  him  to  teachers, 
and  enjoin  them  to  see  to  his  manners  even  more  than  to  his  reading 
and  music;  and  the  teachers  do  as  they  are  desired.  When,  accord- 
ingly, the  boy  has  learned  his  letters  and  is  beginning  to  understand 
what  is  written,  as  before  he  understood  only  what  was  spoken,  they 
put  into  his  hands  the  works  of  great  poets,  which  he  reads,  sitting 
on  a  bench  in  school.  In  these  works  are  contained  many  admoni- 
tions, and  many  tales,  and  praises,  and  eulogies  of  ancient  famous 
men,  which  he  is  required  to  learn  by  heart,  in  order  that  he  may 
imitate  or  emulate  them  and  desire  to  become  like  them.  Then 
again  the  teachers  of  the  lyre  take  similar  care  that  their  young  pupil 
is  temperate  and  gets  into  no  mischief;  and  when  they  have  taught 


THE  AGE  OF  PERICLES  297 

him  the  use  of  the  lyre,  they  introduce  him  to  the  poems  of  other  ex- 
cellent poets,  who  are  lyric  poets.  These  poems  they  set  to  music, 
and  make  their  harmonies  and  rhythms  quite  familiar  to  the  chil- 
dren's souls,  in  order  that  they  may  learn  to  be  more  gentle  and 
harmonious  and  rhythmical,  and  so  more  fitted  for  speech  and  action; 
for  the  life  of  man  in  every  part  has  need  of  harmony  and  rhythm. 
Then  they  send  them  to  the  master  of  gymnastics,  in  order  that  their 
bodies  may  better  minister  to  the  virtuous  mind,  and  that  they  may 
not  be  compelled  through  bodily  weakness  to  play  the  coward  in  war 
or  on  other  such  occasions.  This  is  done  by  those  who  have  the 
means  —  the  rich ;  their  children  begin  to  go  to  school  soonest  and 
leave  off  latest."  "* 

Good  order  in  the  theatre.  The  same  high  moral  standard  we 
see  in  the  perfect  order  at  the  theatres.  There  the  people  gathered, 
not  to  judge  of  the  music,  but  to  receive  recreation  and  instruction; 
and  no  one  dared  make  a  noise  expressing  approval  or  the  reverse. 
"  In  early  time  music  was  divided  among  us  into  certain  kinds  and 
manners.  One  sort  consisted  of  prayers  to  the  Gods,  which  were 
called  hymns;  and  there  was  another  and  opposite  sort  called  lamen- 
tations and  another  called  paeans,  and  another,  celebrating  the  birth 
of  Dionysus,  called,  I  believe,  dithyrambs.  They  used  further  the 
actual  word  'laws'  for  another  kind  of  song;  and  to  this  kind  they 
added  the  term  '  citheroedic'  All  these  and  others  were  duly  dis- 
tinguished, nor  were  the  performers  allowed  to  confuse  one  style  with 
another.  Furthermore  the  authority  which  determined  and  gave  judg- 
ment, and  punished  the  disobedient,  was  not  expressed  in  a  hiss,  nor 
in  the  most  unmusical  shouts  of  the  multitude,  as  in  our  own  days,  nor 
in  applause  and  clapping  of  hands.  But  the  directors  of  public  in- 
struction insisted  that  the  spectators  should  listen  in  silence  to  the  end; 
and  boys  and  their  tutors,  and  the  multitude  in  general,  were  kept 
quiet  by  a  hint  from  a  stick."  ^^ 

Blemishes  and  limitations;  morality  is  civic.  Further  evidence 
is  the  appeal  of  the  dramatic  poets  to  a  remarkably  high  moral  sense, 
and  the  lofty  moral  key  in  which  the  Funeral  Oration  of  Pericles  is 
pitched.  Most  of  all,  the  moral  quality  shows  itself  in  the  sacrifice 
of  the  individual  to  the  good  of  the  community.  All  this  does  not 
signify  that  either  private  or  public  life  was  faultless.     The  blemishes 

94  Plat.   Protag.  325  f. 

95  Plato,  Laws,  iii.  700. 


A  SCHOOL 


THEATRE  AT  EPIDAUROS 


HELLENIC  HISTORY  299 

of  the  civilization,  show  themselves,  for  example,  in  the  indecencies 
of  comedy,  in  the  cramping  of  the  lives  of  native  women  and  the  li- 
cense allowed  to  the  "  companions  "  of  foreign  birth,  in  the  existence 
of  slavery,  however  good  may  have  been  the  condition  of  slaves,  in 
the  narrowness  and  exclusiveness  of  Athenian  interests,  as  opposed 
to  those  of  metics,  dependent  allies,  Hellenes,  and  the  world  —  a 
selfishness  easily  explicable  by  the  conditions  of  the  times  but  none 
the  less  an  imperfection.  A  part  of  the  narrowness  here  mentioned  — 
a  part  of  the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  city-state  —  is  the  fact  that 
her  morality  was  essentially  civic.  The  fundamental  motive  to  right 
conduct,  as  Pericles  himself  asserts,  is  the  good  of  the  state.  "  I 
would  have  you  day  by  day  fix  your  eyes  upon  the  greatness  of 
Athens  till  you  become  filled  with  the  love  of  her;  and  when  you  are 
impressed  by  the  spectacle  of  her  glor}%  reflect  that  this  empire  she 
owes  to  men  with  the  fighter's  daring,  the  wise  man's  understanding 
of  his  duty,  and  the  good  man's  self-discipline  in  its  performance, — 
to  men  who  if  they  failed  in  any  ordeal  disdained  to  deprive  the  city 
of  their  services,  but  sacrificed  their  lives  as  the  best  offerings  in  her 
behalf."  ^*'  The  patriotic  devotion  here  required  was  too  intense  to 
be  lasting.  No  long  time  after  Pericles  the  gradual  disintegration 
of  the  city-states  resulted  in  depriving  the  citizen  of  his  moral  basis, 
and  compelled  him  to  fight  out  anew  the  whole  battle  of  conduct 
on  other,  very  different  ground. 

96Thuc.  ii.  43  (Zimmem). 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Grote,  chs.  Ixvii,  Ixviii;  Bury,  363-367,  385-389;  Meyer,  IV,  85-272;  Beloch, 
II,  220-260;  Bury,  Ancient  Greek  Historians  (Macmillan,  1909);  Zimmern, 
Greek  Commonweath;  Sihler,  Testimonium  Aniyna;,  159-194;  Abbott,  Hellenica, 
33-66;  Hamilton,  Incubation  or  the  Cure  of  Diseases  in  Pagan  Temples  and 
Christian  Churches  (London,  1906)  ;  Whibley,  Companion,  see  contents;  Living- 
stone, The  Greek  Genius  and  Its  Meaning  to  Us  (2d.  ed.,  Oxford:  Clarendon 
Press,  1915)  ;  Glover,  From  Pericles  to  Philip,  ch.  x;  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers, 
I,  ch.  xii-v,  II,  chs.  i-iv;  Moore,  Religious  Thought  of  the  Greeks,  ch.  iv; 
Stobart,  Glory  that  was  Greece,  ch.  iv;  Wright,  Greek  Literature  (American 
Book  Co.,  1907),  143-64,  216-37;  Croiset,  Hist,  de  la  lift,  grecque,  II,  chs.  ix, 
X,  III,  ch.  vi;  Windelband,  History  of  Ancient  Philosophy,  28-93  (Scribner, 
1899)  ;  Burnet,  Greek  Philosophy,  I;  Capps,  Homer  to  Theocritus,  215-36,  301- 
16. 


SOPHOCLES 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR 

To  THE  Beginning  of  the  Sicilian  Expedition 

431-415 

Causes  of  the  war :  conflicting  political  principles.  Among  the 
most  powerful  disintegrating  forces  referred  to  at  the  close  of  the 
last  chapter  was  the  long  war  between  the  Athenians  and  the  Pelo- 
ponnesians,  begun  in  431.^  From  the  conclusion  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
Truce  of  445  to  this  date,  peace  had  been  maintained  in  spite  of  an 
ever-growing  antipathy  between  the  two  powers.  Among  the  causes 
of  hostility  was  an  Athenian  claim  to  leadership  generally  considered 
incompatible  with  the  liberties  of  individual  states  and  with  the  long- 
established  policy  of  Lacedaemon.  The  Athenians  asserted  that  their 
hegemony  had  been  forced  upon  them  by  Sparta's  unwillingness  to 
continue  the  war  with  Persia,  that  circumstances  not  under  their 
control  had  converted  the  Confederacy  into  an  Empire,  and  that, 
though  they  had  been  compelled  thus  to  usurp  an  authority,  they  had 
made  good  their  right  to  it  by  a  justice  and  a  moderation  unparalleled 
in  history.  Against  this  claim  their  enemies,  particularly  the  Corin- 
thians, charging  Athens  with  the  enslavement  of  her  allies  and  with 
the  design  of  reducing  other  Hellenes  to  servitude,  called  upon  Lace- 
daemon to  take  the  lead  in  putting  down  the  tyrant.  The  Spartans, 
who  for  generations  had  been  opposed  to  despotism,  still  considered 
themselves  champions  of  the  principle  of  city  sovereignty,  and  were  so 

1  For  the  Peloponnesian  war  we  are  fortunate  in  having  a  highly  trustworthy  contem- 
porary source,  Thucydides,  History  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  (p.  3-14  f.  below).  Bk.  i 
gives  the  antecedents  of  the  war  and  the  remainder  of  the  work,  bks.  ii-viii,  follows  its 
course  into  the  year  411.  For  the  remainder  of  the  war  we  have  Xenophon,  Hellenica,  i, 
ii.  (p.  431  below),  a  work  inferior  to  Thucydides,  and  yet  very  valuable.  Far  inferior  is 
the  treatment  of  the  subject  by  Diodorus,  xii,  xiii,  who  drew  his  material  mainly  from 
Ephorus  (p.  434  below).  More  useful  than  Diodorus  are  those  Lives  of  Plutarch  which 
fell  within  the  period:  Pericles  (end);  Nicias ;  Alcibiades ;  Lysander  (beginning).  Of  lit- 
tle worth  are  Nepos,  Alcibiades ;  Lysander.  There  are  many  inscriptions,  some  of  which 
will  be  found  in  Hicks  and  Hill  and  in  Dittenberger  1.  Some  of  the  constitutional  changes 
are  recorded  in  Aristotle,  Constitution  of  Athens,  2S-34.  The  Comedies  of  Aristophanes 
throw  light  on  political  events  and  conditions  and  are  valuable  for  social  life.  Also  the 
Tragedies  of  Sophocles  and  of  Euripides  reflect  the  intellectual  spirit  of  the  age,  and  give 
many  intimations  of  social  conditions  and  tendencies.  Other  useful  references  are  scat- 
tered through   the   literature   of   after  time. 

30) 


302  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

regarded  by  their  allies.-  "  The  feeling  of  mankind  was  strongly  on 
the  side  of  the  Lacedaemonians;  for  they  professed  to  be  the  liber- 
ators of  Hellas.  States  and  individuals  were  eager  to  assist  them 
to  the  utmost  both  by  word  and  by  deed.  .  .  ,  For  the  general  in- 
dignation against  the  Athenians  was  intense;  some  were  longing  to 
be  delivered  from  them,  others  fearful  of  falling  under  their  sway."  ^ 

A  conflict  of  economic  interests:  Athenian  designs  upon 
Megara.  A  more  particular  cause  of  the  war  lay  in  a  conflict  of 
interests  between  Athens  and  individual  allies  of  Lacedaemon.  An 
article  of  the  Treaty  of  445  had  provided  for  the  "  open-door  "  in 
commerce  between  the  Athenian  empire  and  Peloponnese.  Recently, 
however,  the  Athenians,  alleging  that  the  Megarians  had  encroached 
upon  sacred  land  near  the  border  and  had  sheltered  runaway  slaves, 
retaliated  by  excluding  the  offending  state  from  the  harbors  and 
markets  of  the  empire.  Megara  depended  economically  upon  Athens, 
whose  real  object  undoubtedly  was  to  force  the  little  Isthmian  country 
into  her  empire  in  order  to  secure  harborage  on  the  Corinthian  gulf. 
To  the  commercial  class  at  Athens  and  to  the  multitude  of  urban 
artisans  and  laborers  the  future  prosperity  of  the  city  seemed  to 
depend  on  .an  enlargement  of  trade  relations  with  Italy  and  Sicily. 
Doubtless  Pericles,  too,  who  was  concerned  for  the  food  supply,  looked 
to  the  harvests  of  the  west  to  make  good  any  possible  shortage  of 
importation  from  Egypt  or  the  Black  Sea.* 

Athenian  interest  in  Corcyra  and  in  western  Hellas.  The 
same  motive  led  the  Athenians  to  interfere  in  a  war  between  Corinth 
and  her  colony  Corcyra,  and  to  accept  an  alliance  proposed  by  the 
latter.^  Among  the  arguments  for  an  alliance  the  Corcyraean  am- 
bassadors stated  that,  "  besides  offering  many  other  advantages,  Cor- 
cyra is  conveniently  situated  for  the  coast  voyage  to  Italy  and  Sicily; 
it  stands  in  the  way  of  any  fleet  coming  from  thence  to  Peloponnese 
and  can  also  protect  a  fleet  on  its  way  to  Sicily."  '^  Should  Athens 
succeed  in  these  ambitions,  her  merchant  vessels  and  her  war  galleys 
could  save  time  and  risk  by  sailing  from  the  western  shore  of  Megaris 
through  the  Corinthian  gulf  to  Corcyra  and  thence  to  southern  Italy. 

2  Athenian  claim;  Thuc.  i.  72-9;  ii.  63.  Counter-charge  by  her  opponents;  i.  68,  122. 
Sparta  and  city  sovereignty;   i.   69. 

3  Thuc.  ii.  8. 

4  Open-door  agreement;  p.  403.  Its  violation  in  the  case  of  Megara;  Thuc.  i.  139; 
Aristoph.  Acharn.  519  ff . ;  Diod.  xii.  39.  4.     The  Sicilian  motive;  Thuc.  iii.  86. 

5  Thuc.   1.  24-55;   Diod.  xii.  30-4;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no,   53. 

6  Thuc.  i.  36.  The  ill  will  between  Athens  and  Corinth  was  aggravated  further  by  the 
interference  of  the  latter  between  Athens  and  a  rebellious  ally,  Potidaea;  founded  by  Cor- 
inth: Thuc.  i.  56,  63-5. 


THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR  303 

The  Athenian  commercial  menace  to  Peloponnese.  The  eco- 
nomic motive  to  the  war  had  a  still  wider  scope.  The  rise  of  Peir- 
raeus  had  destroyed  the  prosperity  of  Aegina  and  was  choking  the 
industrial  and  commercial  life  of  both  Megara  and  Corinth.  Athen- 
ian supremacy  at  sea  threatened  to  cut  Peloponnese  off  from  the  rest 
of  the  world.  In  a  congress  of  Sparta's  allies,  deputies  from  Corinth 
clearly  described  this  situation:  "Those  among  us  who  have  ever 
had  dealings  with  the  Athenians  do  not  require  to  be  warned  against 
them;  but  such  as  live  inland  and  not  on  any  maritime  highway 
should  clearly  understand  that,  if  they  do  not  protect  the  seaboard 
they  will  not  be  able  to  carry  their  produce  to  the  sea,  or  to  receive 
in  exchange  the  goods  which  the  sea  gives  to  the  land.  They  should 
not  lend  a  careless  ear  to  our  words,  for  they  nearly  concern  them; 
they  should  remember  that  if  they  desert  the  cities  on  the  coast,  the 
danger  may  some  day  reach  them."  ^ 

Fear  of  the  increasing  political  power  of  Athens.  The  real 
reason  for  the  war,  however,  asserts  Thucydides,  was  not  the  com- 
plaints of  allies  in  congress,  but  Sparta's  "  fear  of  the  Athenians  and 
their  increasing  power."  *  The  statement  is  true  in  the  sense  that  this 
was  Sparta's  motive,  and  that  if  she  had  not  engaged  in  the  war, 
either  it  would  not  have  occurred  or  would  have  been  carried  on  by 
only  a  few  of  her  allies,  and  hence  would  have  remained  relatively 
insignificant. 

Athenian  party  politics  as  a  cause.  The  attitude  of  Pericles 
toward  the  war  may  only  be  inferred  from  circumstances.  The 
oligarchic  opposition,  disorganized  by  the  banishment  of  Thucydides, 
had  recovered  strength;  but  not  daring  as  yet  to  attack  him  openly, 
it  assailed  his  friends  and  helpers.  First  his  enemies  prosecuted 
Pheidias  on  the  charge  of  having  embezzled  some  of  the  gold  en- 
trusted to  him  for  use  on  the  statue  of  Athena.  Though  ready  to 
prove  his  innocence,  he  was  thrown  into  prison,  where  he  died  while 
awaiting  his  trial.''  Next  they  prosecuted  Aspasia  for  immoral  con- 
duct and  impiety;  but  the  tears  of  Pericles  won  the  judges  to  a 
favorable  verdict.^"  About  the  same  time  one  of  his  opponents  pro- 
posed and  carried  a  decree  "  for  instituting  legal  proceedings  against 
all  persons  who  disbelieved  in  religion  and  held  views  of  their  own 

7  Thuc.  i.  120. 

8  Thuc.    i.   23,   88.     This  statement  of  motive  seems  fully  justified   by  the   aggressions   of 
Athens  in  all  directions,   almost  invariably  successful  during  the  preceding  half  century. 

9  Probably  432;  Plut.  Per.  31;  Diod.  xii.  39.   1  f;   Aristoph.  Peace,  605  ff. 

10  Plut.  Per.  32;  Athen.  xiii.  56. 


304  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

regarding  the  heavenly  bodies."  As  this  resolution  was  aimed  at 
Anaxagoras,  Pericles  advised  the  philosopher  to  avoid  trouble  by  re- 
tiring from  Athens/^  Finally  they  threatened  Pericles  himself  with 
prosecution  for  embezzlement  of  public  funds.  Had  they  succeeded 
in  overthrowing  him,  they  would  doubtless  have  attempted  to  set  up 
an  oligarchy  and  to  return  to  political  dependence  on  Lacedaemon. 
To  avoid  this  danger,  Pericles  felt  compelled  to  seek  support  in  the 
industrial  and  commercial  class,  which  was  determined  upon  political 
expansion.^-  At  the  same  time  it  appeared  to  him  that  sooner  or 
later  a  trial  of  arms  with  Peloponnese  was  inevitable.  It  was  better, 
then,  that  it  should  come  while  he  was  still  in  the  prime  of  life  and 
Athens  in  excellent  military  condition.  Hence  he  persuaded  his 
countr}'men  to  oppose  every  concession  to  the  Peloponnesians. 

The  resources  of  the  opposing  powers.  Knowing  better  than 
any  contemporary  the  resources  of  Athens  and  her  enemy,  Pericles 
had  ground  for  confidence.  Arrayed  against  his  state  were  the 
forces  of  nearly  all  Peloponnese,  of  the  Boeotian  confederacy  under 
Theban  leadership,  of  lesser  allies  in  the  centre  and  west  of  the 
peninsula.  The  enemy  could  invade  Attica  with  a  force  of  30,000 
heavy  infantry,  but  could  not  remain  long  in  the  country  because 
most  of  the  Peloponnesians  were  small  farmers,  who  personally  tilled 
their  lands,  and  because  they  had  to  bring  their  food  supplies  with 
them.  They  could  devastate  the  fields,  but  could  accomplish  noth- 
ing against  the  strong  fortifications  of  Athens  and  Peiraeus.  The 
industr}^  and  commerce  of  Athens  would  continue  so  long  as  her  fleets 
commanded  the  sea.  The  idea  of  borrowing  from  the  treasuries  of 
Delphi  and  Olympia  for  building  a  Peloponnesian  navy,  though 
suggested,  proved  an  idle  dream.  Against  the  almost  total  lack  of 
public  funds  among  the  enemy,  could  be  reckoned  six  thousand  tal- 
ents stored  in  the  treasuries  on  the  Acropolis  and  an  annual  income 
from  tributes  and  other  sources  amounting  to  about  a  thousand  talents. 

Pericles'  plan  of  conducting  the  war.  The  plan  of  Pericles 
therefore  was  to  bring  the  entire  population  of  the  country,  with 
their  movable  goods,  into  the  city  and  permit  the  devastation  of  the 
fields;  for  an  open  battle  with  the  superior  force  of  the  enemy  could 
not  be  risked.     Meantime  with  his  fleet  he  would  ravage  the  coasts 

11  Plut.  Per.  iZ:  Nic.  23;  Ephorus,  in  Diod.  xii.  39.  2;  Diog.  Laert,  ii.  12  f.  The  pro- 
poser was  Diopeithes,   an  interpreter  of  oracles;    Aristoph.   Birds,  988;   Xen.   Hell.   iii.   3.   3. 

12  Consistentlv  the  merchants  and  the  urban  democrats  had  promoted  imperialism;  p. 
167,  201.  Aftervvard  Cleon  (p.  306)  and  Hyperbolus  (Aristoph.  KniglUs,  1302-4),  industral 
democrats,  fa\ored  expansion.  Though  supported  by  this  class,  Pericles  repudiated  the 
idea  of  conouest:  Thuc.  ii.  65.   7. 

•IS  Ajax  758  u. 


THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR  305 

of  Peloponnese  and  cut  off  its  commerce;  thus  while  partially  com- 
pensating the  Athenians  for  damage  to  their  fields,  he  would  grad- 
ually force  the  enemy  to  a  more  favorable  peace  than  that  of  445.^ 
Gathering  of  the  population  into  the  city.  The  cold,  calculat- 
ing plan  of  Pericles  subjected  Athenian  nature  to  an  excessive  strain. 
Notwithstanding  the  rapid  growth  of  city  economy,  the  bulk  of  the 
population  still  resided  in  the  country,  and  still  depended  in  large 
part  on  farming.  They  had  restored  their  fields  and  country  houses 
after  the  Persian  invasion;  and  through  favoring  economic  condi- 
tions they  had  developed  a  prosperity  scarcely  known  in  any  other 
Greek  country."  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  appreciate  their  fond 
attachment  to  their  local  shrines,  whose  small  gods,  they  thought, 
were  more  sympathetic  protectors  than  the  mighty  warden  of  the 
Acropolis.  They  gathered  perforce  behind  the  walls,  where  few  had 
houses  of  their  own,  or  hospitable  friends.     Most  had  to  live  — 

In  a  barrack,  an  outhouse,  a  hovel,  a  shed, 

In  nests  of  the  rock,  where  the  vultures  are  bred. 

In  tubs,  and  in  huts,  and  in  towers  of  the  wall.^* 

The  first  year  of  the  war,  431;  the  Funeral  Oration.  When 
they  heard  that  a  Peloponnesian  army  was  ravaging  the  countr}', 
cutting  down  orchards  and  destroying  the  ripe  grain  in  the  fields, 
they  longed  to  go  forth  and  fight  the  enemy.  Gathering  in  knots  on 
the  streets,  they  complained  bitterly  of  their  plight,  and  laid  the  whole 
blame  of  the  war  and  their  losses  upon  Pericles.  The  great  states- 
man, who  had  despatched  a  fleet  to  ravage  the  Peloponnesian  coast, 
maintained  his  policy  at  home  in  spite  of  opposition.  In  the  autumn 
he  persuaded  the  people  to  decree  a  reserve  of  a  thousand  talents,  to  be 
used  only  in  case  of  an  attack  by  sea,  and  of  a  hundred  of  their  best 
triremes  to  be  ready  always  for  the  defence  of  Peiraeus.  In  his  naval 
operations  and  in  diplomacy  he  had  made  real  gains,  and  was  un- 
doubtedly pleased  with  the  results. ^^  After  the  campaign  the  re- 
mains of  those  who  had  fallen  in  battle  during  the  summer  were 
solemnly  conveyed  in  procession  to  the  State  cemetery  in  Cerameicus 
—  a  beautiful  spot  outside  the  walls  —  and  interred  amid  the  lamen- 
tation of  their  kin,  citizens  and  metics,  women,  and  men.  After  the 
burial  Pericles  addressed  the  people  in  a  Funeral  Oration  commented 

13  p.  261  f.     Thuc.   ii.    16;   Ox.  Hell.  xii.   5. 

14  Aristoph.  Knights,  972  ff.  (Frere);  cf.  Thuc.  ii.  17. 

15  Thuc.  ii.  10-33;  Diod.  xii.  41  f . ;  Plut.  Per.  33  f. 


306  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

or  in  an  earlier  chapter.^^     The  custom  was  followed  year  by  year 
throughout  the  war. 

The  pestilence,  430  and  after.  In  the  second  year  there  was 
the  usual  invasion  of  Attica  by  the  Peloponnesians  and  the  Athenian 
voyage  of  desolation  along  the  Peloponnesian  coastland.  In  fact 
these  operations  were  as  a  rule  repeated  during  the  early  period  of 
the  war.  The  season  had  not  far  advanced,  however,  before  a  ter- 
rible plague,  beginning  in  Africa  south  of  Egypt,  reached  Peiraeus. 
As  no  aqueduct  had  yet  been  built  to  the  port  town,  the  inhabitants 
had  to  depend  upon  cistern  water;  and  these  circumstances  aggra- 
vated the  malady.  Soon  it  passed  up  between  the  Long  Walls  to 
Athens.  The  population  of  both  cities  was  densely  packed;  they 
lacked  the  necessities  of  life;  there  was  no  sewerage  or  any  efficient 
sanitation.  The  victims  were  seized  with  fierce  internal  fevers,  ac- 
companied by  horrible  symptoms,  minutely  described  in  the  pages  of 
Thucydides.  Ordinarily  they  died  on  the  seventh  or  ninth  day.  To 
be  taken  with  the  pest  meant  death ;  but  those  who  almost  miraculously 
recovered  were  thereafter  practically  immune.  As  is  usual  in  such 
calamities,  this  plague  called  forth  the  noblest  heroism:  physicians 
and  relatives  bravely  sacrificed  their  lives  in  devotion  to  duty  or  in 
love  of  kin.  At  the  same  time  it  awakened  in  Athens  the  most 
beastly  appetites  and  passions  that  dwell  in  depraved  human  na- 
ture: We  shall  die  tomorrow,  let  us  yield  today  to  every  rabid 
desire.  Fully  a  third  of  the  population  was  swept  away,  and  those 
who  survived  were  totally  unmanned.  The  discouragement  was  all 
the  greater  because  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  Apollo  had  promised 
aid  to  the  foe;  and  the  people  now  attributed  the  plague  to  his  en- 
mity. ^^ 

The  end  of  Pericles,  429.  Humbly  they  sought  peace  of  Sparta; 
but  repulsed  by  her,  they  turned  against  Pericles  as  the  author  of 
their  woes.  In  spite  of  all  he  could  say  in  defence  of  his  policy,  they 
suspended  him  from  office  and  fined  him.  Having  thus  satisfied 
their  resentment,  they  soon  afterward  reelected  him  general  with  ab- 
solute power.  He  survived  the  beginning  of  the  war  only  two  years 
and  six  months.  After  his  death  the  people  learned  his  value  by 
bitter  experience;  "  for  he  had  told  the  Athenians  that  if  they  would 

10  p.   292  ff ;  Thuc.   ii.  34. 

i7Thuc.  ii.  47-58;  Diod.  xii.  43-5;  Plut.  Per.  34  f . ;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  55.  4700  knights 
and  effective  hoplifes  perished  (Thuc.  iii.  87),  and  doubtless  a  larger  proportion  of  thetes. 
Oracle;  Thuc.   i.   118;  ii.  54. 


THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR  307 

be  patient  and  would  attend  to  their  navy,  and  not  seek  to  enlarge 
their  dominion  while  the  war  was  going  on,  nor  imperil  the  existence 
of  the  City,  they  would  be  victorious."  ^*  These  words  were  un- 
doubtedly true;  the  misfortunes  afterward  suffered  came  through 
deviations  from  his  policy.^"-' 

The  silent  revolution  marked  by  his  death.  Thus  passed  away 
the  only  man  who  stood  sufficiently  high  above  all  individuals  and 
parties  to  command  universal  respect.  In  his  death  the  eupatrids 
lost  their  hold  upon  the  government  whose  leadership  passed  to  men 
of  the  industrial  class,  such  as  Cleon  the  tanner,  who,  unable  to 
win  the  powerful  support  of  the  old  nobility  and  of  the  moderate 
class,  had  to  resort  to  lower  politics  and  cater  to  the  baser  and  more 
brutal  desires  and  instincts  of  the  populace.  The  revolution,  thus 
silently  effected,  was  as  great  as  the  century-long  conflict  at  Rome 
which  opened  the  consulship  to  the  plebeians,  and  in  its  immediate 
consequences  far  more  sweeping;  for  in  her  war  with  Peloponnese 
Athens  lost  through  the  death  of  Pericles  centralization  of  leadership 
and  continuity  of  jwlicy.-" 

The  economic  burden  of  the  war.  The  details  of  the  various 
expeditions  of  the  earlier  years  of  the  war,  small  defeats  and  victories, 
the  capture  or  loss  of  points  of  vantage,  have  little  interest  for  the 
student  of  Greek  life.  To  the  majority  of  the  population,  as  ex- 
plained above,  the  war  was  a  grievous  affliction,  aggravated  by  the 
plague,  which  in  a  less  violent  form  recurred  annually  for  several 
years.  The  income  of  citizens  and  State  was  vastly  diminished.  No 
land  could  be  tilled  beyond  the  neighborhood  of  Athens  and  Peiraeus; 
the  work  in  the  mines  of  Laurium  nearly  ceased;  and  in  spite  of  the 
Athenian  naval  supremacy,  commerce  was  hampered  by  buccaneers 
and  by  the  squadrons  of  the  enemy.  The  port  dues  correspondingly 
shrank,  while  the  delinquencies  in  the  tributes  accumulated,  and  the 
■dues  from  Caria  were  collected  only  by  military  expeditions,  which 
sometimes  ended  in  disaster.  Whereas  the  revenues  diminished,  the 
the  expenses  enormously  increased.  For  a  time  the  difference  was  met 
by  loans  from  the  funds  of  Athena  and  of  the  other  Gods,  at  the  rate 
of  about  eight  hundred  talents  a  year.  In  428  Lesbos,  which  alone 
with  Chios  had  remained  an  independent  ally,  revolted.  In  the  face 
of  this  new  peril,  and  of  the  rapid  melting  away  of  the  reserve,  the 

18  Thuc.  ii.  65. 

i«  Thuc.  ii.  59-65;  Diod.  xii.  45  f . ;  Plut.  Per.  35  f.    Suspension  of  a  magistrate;  p.  248. 

20  Thuc.  ii.  65;  Diod.  xii.  46;  Plut.  Per.  37-9. 


308  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Athenians  for  the  first  time  in  the  war  resorted  to  a  direct  tax  for 
raising  two  hundred  talents,  which  was  probably  repeated  during  the 
next  two  years.  Relative  to  the  expenses  the  sum  was  slight,  but  it 
weighed  heavily  upon  unproductive  lands,  and  on  citizens  already 
loaded  down  with  expensive  public  services.-^ 

Longings  for  peace.  Under  these  circumstances  the  feelings  of 
the  Athenians  toward  the  war  were  so  mixed  as  to  be  difficult  of 
analysis.  Undoubtedly  the  intellectuals  and  the  landed  aristocracy 
longed  for  peace.  Most  farmers  of  moderate  wealth  would  gladly 
have  received  their  discharge  from  hoplite  service,  and  be  granted 
the  opportunity  in  peace  to  reestablish  their  ruined  fields.^-  Rapidly 
as  the  growth  of  their  civilization  with  its  humane  spirit,  a  love  of 
peace  and  of  her  occupations  had  permeated  all  classes.  In  the  first 
year  of  the  war  Euripides  could  address  the  Athenians  as  inhabitants 
of  a  country  preeminently  of  peace,  wisdom,  harmony,  music,  and 
love : — 

O  happy  the  race  in  the  ages  olden 

Of  Erechtheus,  the  seed  of  the  blesc  Gods'  line, 

In  a  land  unravaged,  peace-enfolden, 
Aye  quaffing  of  Wisdom's  glorious  wine, 

Ever  through  air  clear-shining  brightly, 

As  on  wings  uplifted,  pacing  lightly, 

Where  Harmonia,  they  tell,  of  the  tresses  golden 
Grew,  sown  by  the  Muses,  the  stainless  Nine.^s 

Militaristic  motives.  The  desire  of  gain,  however,  helped  keep 
the  war  going.  Merchants  and  mechanics  expected  to  suffer  little 
from  it,  and  might  hope  to  extend  their  business  through  conquests, 
while  the  poor  found  a  livelihood  in  naval  service,  or  looked  to  the 
enlargement  of  the  empire  for  increased  tributes  and  a  lengthened 
pay-roll.-"*  Throughout  the  masses  of  citizens  the  patriotic  motive 
was  strong,  and  added  to  it  was  a  thirst  for  vengeance  on  the  in- 
vaders of  their  fields.  In  their  eyes  one  who  dares  speak  of  peace  is  a 
traitor :  — 

21  Military  details;  Thuc.  ii.  66  ff. ;  Diod.  xii.  46  ff.  Carian  tributes;  Thuc.  ,ii.  69;  iii. 
19.  Treasury  of  Athena  and  the  Other  Gods;  H.  Civ.  no.  105.  Expenses;  Cavaignac, 
L'Histoire  fiitanc,  1,  15  ff.  Direct  tax;  Thuc.  iii.  19.  Lesbian  revolt;  iii,  2-19;  Anst.  Polit. 
V.  3.  6,  1304  a. 

22  Aristoph.  Acharmans  and  Peace  abound  in  these  sentiments;  cf.  Eunp.  Orestes,  918 
ff. ;  Suppliants,  4?0  ff . ;  Isoc.   Areop.  52  f. 

2.3  Mcdca,  826   ff.  ,      ,  „  ,  „ 

24  Cleon's  majority  arc  commercial  and  indu'itrial  class  —  leather-sellers,  honey-sellers, 
cheese-mongers;  Cornford,  Thucycides  Mythhistoricus,  (London,  1907)  p.  22.  Peace:  296, 
503  (farmers  alone  favor  peace).  Militaristic,  Caldwell,  Hellenic  Conceptions  of  Peace,  p. 
90   f.;    93,   99    f. 


THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR  309 


Who  has  dared,  Father  Zeus!  Gods  of  Heaven!  to  make  a  truce? 
Who  has  pledged  faith  with  those  who  are  evermore  our  foes? 
Upon  whom  war  1  mai<e  for  my  ruined  vineyard's  sake ; 

And  I  ne'er  from  the  strife  will  give  o'er, 
No,  and  I  ne'er  will  forbear,  till  I  pierce  them  in  return, 
Like  a  reed,  sharply  barbed,  dagger-pointed,  and  they  learn 

Not  to  tread  down  my  vines  any  more.-^ 

The  revolt  of  Lesbos,  428-7.  The  years  428  and  427  were  made 
anxious  by  the  revolt  of  Lesbos.  In  the  midsummer  of  the  latter 
year,  however,  after  trying  every  other  resource,  the  Lesbian  oligarchs 
armed  the  commoners,  who  lost  little  time  in  forcing  an  uncondi- 
tional surrender  to  Athens.  Exasperated  by  the  revolt  and  wishing 
to  strike  terror  into  the  hearts  of  all  disaffected  allies,  the  Athenians 
voted  to  put  to  death  all  the  grown-up  citizens  of  Mytilene,  and  to 
enslave  the  women  and  children.  The  upholder  of  this  policy  of  ter- 
rorism was  Clieon.  Immediately  repenting,  however,  they  gathered 
again  in  assembly  on  the  morrow,  reversed  the  cruel  sentence,  and 
limited  the  punishment  of  death  to  the  few  most  guilty.  The  lands  of 
the  rebels,  however,  were  confiscated  and  divided  among  Athenian  col- 
onists.-" 

Widening  of  the  war  area  and  the  increase  of  the  tribute. 
Athens  was  now  in  a  position  to  widen  the  field  of  her  operations. 
She  sent  aid  to  her  friends  in  Sicily;  and  a  naval  force  under  Demos- 
thenes seized  and  held  Pylos  on  the  western  coast  of  Peloponnese.  Of 
the  force  sent  to  its  rescue  nearly  three  hundred  Spartans  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  Athenians.  Cleon,  who  had  brought  a  reinforcement 
to  Demosthenes  during  the  struggle  over  Pylos,  reaped  the  fruit  of 
the  victory.  He  was  given  a  seat  of  honor  in  the  theatre  and  the 
life-long  right  to  dine  in  the  Prytaneum.  He  stood  without  a  rival 
in  the  leadership  of  the  State.  Under  his  influence  Athens,  em- 
boldened by  her  brilliant  success,  increased  the  tribute  of  her  allies 
to  a  nominal  total  probably  of  1460  talents,  a  sum  considerably 
greater  than  the  amount  actually  collected.  The  volume  of  money 
in  circulation  had  greatly  expanded;  prices  had  correspondingly 
risen,  and  the  wealth  of  the  allies  under  the  peace  of  Athens  had 
multiplied.     All   these  circumstances  had  rendered  the   increase  of 

25  Aristoph.  Acharn.  228-32;   cf.   26  ff.,   ISO  ff. 

26Thuc.  ;i.  2-19,  26-50;  Hicks  and  Hill,  nos.  5S.  61.  The  statement  of  Thuc  iii.  50,  th-* 
1000  Lesbians  were  thus  put  to  death  seems  to  be  due  to  a  copyist's  error;  Busolt,  Griech. 
Cesch.  III.  1030:  A'  (=  30)  changed  to  A  (=  1000).  Siege  and  destruction  of  Plataea, 
not  mentioned   in   the  text;   Thuc.    ii.    78;   iii.   20-4,   52-68. 


310  THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR 

the  tribute  both  necessary  and  relatively  just.  Other  ordinary  reve- 
nues brought  the  total  income  of  the  imperial  city  to  1500  talents. 
The  Athenians  themselves  were  relieved  of  their  burdensome  direct 
taxes  and  were  enabled  to  increase  the  pay  of  their  officials,  and 
to  prosecute  the  war  with  greater  energy, ^^  In  vain  the  conserva- 
tives stood  against  Cleon,  the  real,  though  not  the  nominal,  author 
of  this  measure;  in  vain  Aristophanes  sought  in  his  comedy  of  the 
Knights  to  crush  him  with  ridicule  and  contempt;  although  with- 
out military  experience,  he  was  elected  general  in  the  spring  of  424, 
and  became  more  popular  and  more  dominant  than  ever. 

The  tide  turns  against  Athens,  424;  A  year's  truce,  423.  The 
Athenians  followed  up  their  success  at  Pylos  by  seizing  other  com- 
manding positions  along  the  Peloponnesian  coast;  but  in  an  attempt 
to  conquer  Boeotia  they  were  disastrously  beaten  at  Delium.  It  was 
still  more  unfortunate  for  Athens  that  Brasidas,  Sparta's  ablest  gen- 
eral, found  the  weak  point  in  the  Athenian  empire  —  the  only  part 
assailable  by  a  land  army,  Chalcidice  and  its  Thracian  neighbor- 
hood. With  a  small  force  he  stole  northward,  and  appearing  before 
Amphipolis,  persuaded  that  important  city  to  revolt.  These  reverses 
induced  the  Athenian  majority  again  to  think  of  peace.  A  truce  of 
one  year  was  followed  by  a  renewal  of  the  war.  Before  Amphipolis 
an  engagement  took  place,  in  which  both  Brasidas  and  Cleon,  the 
chief  obstacles  to  peace,  were  killed.^^ 

War  weariness;  peace  of  Nicias,  421.  Both  sides  were  disap- 
pointed with  the  results  of  the  war.  The  Peloponnesians  had  hoped 
to  bring  Athens  to  speedy  terms  by  invading  her  territory,  but  had 
accomplished  nothing  in  this  direction,  and  they  now  saw  their  coast 
ravaged,  their  commerce  cut  off,  and  slaves  and  helots  incited  to 
desertion  or  rebellion,  by  permanent  garrisons  on  their  border.  In 
place  of  the  naval  supremacy  they  had  hoped  to  win,  they  saw  their 
war  galleys  as  well  as  their  merchant  ships  swept  from  the  seas. 
Athens,  too.  could  balance  her  gains  by  as  heavy  losses  in  life  and 
money:  the  reserves  in  the  Acropolis  were  nearly  exhausted;  the  main 
sources  of  prosperity  had  been  choked  by  invasions;  and  the  temper 

27  Growing  wealth  of  the  allies;  Plut.  Cini.  11  (Theopompus) ;  Isoc.  Paneg.  103.  Trib- 
ute; IG.  I.  suppl.  p.  141.  no.  39  a;  also  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  64;  Cavaignac,  L'Hist.  financ. 
PI.  1.  The  sum.  total  is  mutilated,  but  must  be  either  960  or  1460  talents.  The  former 
seems  too  small,  whereas  the  latter  is  too  great  for  the  actual  tribute,  but  not  an  improb- 
able amount  for  an  official  scheme.  It  is  stated  at  above  1200  talents  (Andoc.  Peace,  9)  or 
1300  talents  (Plut.  Arist.  24).     These  sums  are  nearer  to  the  amount  actually  collected. 

2sThuc.  iv.  45  (seizure  of  Methone) ;  53-5;  Diod.  xii.  65;  IG.  1.  293,  20  ff.  (Cythera). 
Brasidas;  Thug.  iv.  70  ff . ;  Diod.  xii.  67  f.,  72-4.    His  death  and  Cleon's;  Thuc.  v.  10  f. 


COMEDY 
(Vase  painting) 


TEMPLE    AT   CORINTH 


312  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

of  the  allies  under  their  double  load  of  taxation  was  ominous.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  peace  party,  always  strong,  gained  a  majority 
in  the  assembly.  Their  leader  was  Nicias,  a  man  of  great  wealth  and 
of  respectable  family.  In  the  spring  of  421  he  negotiated  the  peace 
which  bears  his  name.^^ 

The  joys  of  peace.  Although  the  terms  of  peace  were  kept  by 
neither  side,  the  Lacedaemonians  and  the  Athenians  refrained  from 
invading  each  other's  territory  for  a  period  of  seven  years. ^"  To  most 
of  the  Athenians,  apart  from  armorers  and  others  whom  war  nour- 
ished, peace  came  as  a  boundless  joy.  The  market-place  overflowed 
with  an  unwonted  happy  life,  as  provisions  grew  more  plentiful  and 
prices  dropped.  The  Megarian  came  with  his  garlic,  salt,  and  figs, 
while  the  Theban  brought  a  greater  variety  of  wares  —  small  articles 
of  handicraft  and  the  fish  and  fowl  of  Lake  Copais.  ^^  The  men  of 
Athens  welcomed  such  comers,  and  prayed  for  a  continuance  of  the 
prosperity :  — 

Moreover  we  pray  that  our  market-place  may 

Be  furnished  each  day  with  a  goodly  display; 

And  for  garlic  and  cucumbers  early  and  rare, 

Pomegranates,  and  apples  in  heaps  to  be  there, 

And  wee  little  coats  for  our  servants  to  wear; 

And  Boeotia  to  send  us  her  pigeons  and  widgeons, 

And  her  geese  and  her  plovers :  the  plentiful  creels 

Once  more  from  Copais  to  journey  with  eels, 

And  for  us  to  be  hustling  and  tussling  and  bustling.  .  .  . 

With  gourmands  together  besieging  the  stall, 

To  purchase  a  fish.^^ 

To  the  noise  of  barter  was  added  the  hum  of  Boeotian  bagpipes:  — 

Theban.     And  now,  you  minstrels. 
That  needs  would  follow  us  all  the  way  from  Thebes, 
Blow  wind  in  the  tail  of  your  bagpipes,  puff  away. 

Athenian.     Get  out,  what  wind  has  brought  'em  here,  I  wonder? 
A  parcel  of  hornets  buzzing  about  the  door ! 
You  humble,  bumble  drones  —  get  out !  get  out !  ^3 

Return  to  the  farms.  The  Peace  of  Aristophanes,  presented  at 
the  Greater  Dionysia  of  421,  represents  the  rural  party  as  even  more 
delighted  with  the  new  conditions.  They  had  suffered  long  from 
the  war-loving  demagogues,  and  from  the  military  officers,  who  had 
treated  them  with  far  less  favor  than  the  city  folk.     But  now,  re- 

29  Thuc.   V.    14-20   (cf.    i.   81);   Plut.   Nicias,   1-10.     Borrowing  from  the  temple  treasuries; 
Hicks  and  Hill,   no.   62.     The  treaty;   Thuc.   v.    18  f . ;   Diod.   xii.   75. 

30  Actually  6  years  and  10  months;  Thuc.  v.  25.  3. 

31  Aristoph.  Acharn.  729  ff.,  872-82  et  pass. 

32  Aristoph.  Peace,  999-1009. 

33  Acharn,  862  ff. 


THE  PELOPONNESIAN  WAR  313 

leased  from  service  on  the  lleet,  and  from  constant  military  drill 
at  the  Lyceum,  they  i)romise  to  be  milder  and  more  yielding  as  jurors, 
while  they  return  with  youthful  zest  to  repairing  their  country 
homes.  ^* 

Farmer.     O  yes!  O  yes!  the  farmers  all  may  go 
Back  to  their  homes,  farm-implements  and  all. 

You  can  leave  your  darts  behind  you ;  yea,  for  sword  and  spear  shall  cease. 
All  things  all  around  are  teeming  with  the  mellow  gifts  of  Peace; 
Shout  your  paeans,  march  away  to  labor  in  your  fields  today. 

Chorus    (Farmers).     Day  most  welcome  to  the  farmers  and  to  all  the 
just  and  true. 
Now  I  see  you  I  am  eager  once  again  my  vines  to  view, 
And  the  fig-trees  which  I  planted  in  my  boyhood's  early  prime, 
I  would  fain  salute  and  visit  after  such  a  weary  time.  .  .  . 

Farmer.     Yes  by  Zeus !  the  well-armed  mattock  seems  to  sparkle  as  we 
gaze, 
And  the  burnished  pitchforks  glitter  in  the  sun's  delighted  rays. 
Very  famously  with  those  will  they  clear  the  vineyard  rows. 
So  that  I  myself  am  eager  homeward  to  my  farm  to  go, 
Breaking  up  the  little  furrows,  long-neglected,  with  the  hoe.'^ 

Rural  pleasures  and  recreations.  It  was  not  merely  to  hard  laboi 
in  the  fields  that  the  rustics  trooped  away,  on  the  signing  of  the 
treaty,  but  also  to  rural  pleasures;  for  the  farmer  was  a  Greek  with 
the  Greek  view  of  life.  In  the  midst  of  labors  he  found  in  homely 
festivals,  in  the  gathering  of  friends  to  a  simple  meal  in  his  house, 
rest  from  fatigues  and  an  invigoration  to  future  effort. 

Ah,  there's  nothing  half  so  sweet  as  when  the  seed  is  in  the  ground, 

God  a  gracious  rain  is  sending,  and  a  neighbor  saunters  round. 

O  Comarchides,  he  hails  me:   "How  shall  we  enjoy  the  hours?" 

'■  Drinking  seems  to  suit  my  fancy,  what  with  these  benignant  showers. 

Therefore  let  three  quarts,  my  mistress,  of  your  kidney-beans  be  fried, 

Mix  them  nicely  up  with  barley,  and  your  choicest  figs  provide; 

Syra,  run  and  shout  to  Manes,  call  him  in  without  delay, 

'  Tis  no  time  to  stand  and  dawdle  pruning  out  the  vines  today. 

Nor  to  break  the  clods  about  them,  now  the  ground  is  soaking  through. 

Bring  me  out  from  home  the  fieldfare,  bring  me  out  the  siskins  two, 

Then  there  ought  to  be  some  beestings,  four  good  plates  of  hare  besides, 

(Hah!  unless  the  cat  purloined  them  yesterday  at  eventide; 

Something  scuffled  in  the  pantry,  something  made  a  noise  and  fuss) ; 

If  you  find  them,  one's  for  father,  bring  the  other  three  to  us. 

Ask  Aeschinades  to  send  us  myrtle  branches  green  and  strong; 

Bid  Charinades  attend  us,  shouting  as  you  pass  along. 
Then  we'll  sit  and  drink  together, 
God  the  while  refreshing,  blessing 
All  the  labors  of  our  hands.^^ 

34  Aristoph.   Peace,  346-57,  632-56,    1179-90. 

35  Peace,  551  ff. 


314  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Peace  forever!  About  the  same  time  Euripides,  in  the  Sup- 
pliants, expresses  the  wish  that  the  short  span  of  human  life  be  free 
henceforth  from  the  harsh  toils  of  war:  — 

Hapless  mortals! 
Why  do  ye  get  you  spears  and  deal  out  death 
To  fellow-men?     Stay,  from  such  toils  forbear. 
And  peaceful  'mid  the  peaceful  ward  your  towns. 
Short  is  life's  span :  behooves  to  pass  through  this 
Softly  as  may  be,  not  with  travail  torn.^^ 

Rise  of  Alcibiades;  renewal  of  hostilities,  418.  However  desir- 
able the  peace,  the  Lacedaemonians  could  not  compel  their  allies  to 
fulfill  the  terms.  For  her  own  security  therefore  Sparta  entered 
into  a  close  defensive  union  with  Athens.  The  Peloponnesian  league 
dissolved;  Elis  and  Mantinea  joined  the  Argives.  Hereupon  Athens, 
breaking  her  treaty  with  Lacedaemon,  sent  a  force  to  the  aid  of 
Argos.  The  new  policy  of  Athens  was  due  to  Alcibiades,  nephew 
of  Pericles.  ^  Handsome,  brilliant,  and  daring,  this  young  man  had 
been  petted  and  spoiled  by  kinsfolk  and  fellow-citizens.  He  de- 
ported himself  in  reckless  violation  of  law  and  custom;  saturated  in 
sophistic  instruction,  he  recognized  no  principle  but  self-seeking. 
Experience  in  campaigning  and  personal  fascination  gave  him,  420, 
the  generalship,  which  he  used  in  rehabilitating  the  war  party;  for 
he  hoped  by  war  to  advance  his  own  interest.  Under  other  command- 
ers the  allied  forces  were  disastrously  beaten  at  Mantinea,  418,  by  the 
Lacedaemonians,  who  thereupon  restored  their  league  in  Pelopon- 
nese,  made  a  new  treaty  with  Argos,  and  left  Athens  isolated. ^^ 

Political  machinations  at  Athens;  ostracism  of  Hyperbolus, 
417.  The  whole  enterprise  was  a  serious  blow  to  the  cause  of  peace 
in  Hellas.  The  defeat  robbed  Athens  of  her  advantageous  position, 
and  should  have  meant  the  overthrow  of  the  young  politician  who 
was  chiefly  responsible  for  it.  With  this  understanding  of  the  situa- 
tion Nicias,  who  had  stood  consistently  for  peace,  now  hoped  to  over- 
throw Alcibiades  by  a  vote  of  ostracism.  There  was,  however,  a  third 
party  to  the  political  struggle,  Hyperbolus,  the  lamp-maker,  who  with 
no  knowledge  of  military  affairs,  had  risen  from  the  industrial  class 
to  the  leadership  of  those  Athenians  who  looked  to  war  for  gain. 
Sophistic  training  had  made  him  an  orator,  and  as  Cleon's  successor, 

36  Aristoph.  Peace,  11-40-58.     Fieldfare,  a  European  thrush.  Siskin,  a  finch. 

3T  Eurip.  Suppl.  949-54.  _  ,       . 

38  Thuc  V.  21-80;  Diod.  xii.  76  ff . ;  Plut.  Nicias,  10;  Alcibiades,  1-\S.  Athenian  alliance 
with  Argos;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  69  (cf.  Thuc.  v.  47).  In  the  year  of  the  battle  Alcibiades 
was  not  general  but  ambassador. 

55Ajax  758  ff. 


THE  TELOPONNESIAN  WAR  315 

though  evidently  inferior  in  ability,  he  dreamed  of  conquering  Sicily 
and  even  of  assailing  Carthage.  It  was  probal)ly  fear  of  overthrow 
that  led  Alcibiades  to  sujrgest  to  Nicias  the  advisability  of  joining 
forces  to  rid  themselves  of  a  man  so  hateful  to  both.  The  result 
was  the  ostracism  of  Hyperl)olus,  417.  ^" 

Increased  stability  of  the  state;  milder  political  warfare.  It 
was  the  last  use  of  this  institution.  Ancient  writers  suppose  that 
ostracism  was  discredited  by  being  applied  to  so  worthless  a  charac- 
ter. Probably,  however,  the  Athenians  felt  that  it  had  been  misused 
in  the  banishment  of  a  man  who  did  not  endanger  the  State;  and 
certainly  it  was  now  exceedingly  difficult  to  bring  together  six  thou- 
sand persons  in  the  assembly.  Furthermore  the  state  was  at  length 
too  secure  to  be  readily  endangered  by  an  individual;  and  statesmen 
found  in  the  "  writ  against  illegality "  a  sufficient  though  milder 
weapon  for  assailing  opponents.  These  we  may  assume  to  be  the 
chief  grounds  for  the  discontinuance  of  ostracism. 

Revival  of  the  war  spirit;  massacre  of  the  Melians,  416.  The 
event  increased  the  importance  of  Alcibiades,  whose  war  policy  con- 
tinually grew  in  favor  with  the  Athenians.  Under  his  influence  they 
besieged  and  captured  the  island  of  Melos,  a  Lacedaemonian  colony. 
As  all  Aegean  lands  were  necessarily  protected  by  Athens,  there 
was  a  certain  degree  of  justice  in  the  policy  of  compelling  all  to  pay 
a  share  of  the  tribute.  The  conquerors,  however,  put  to  death  the 
grown  men  and  enslaved  the  women  and  children.  This  abnega- 
tion of  human  kindliness,  this  resort  to  brute  force,  though  practiced 
also  by  the  Peloponnesians,  aroused  universal  hatred  and  fear,  and 
gave  to  enemies  a  certain  justification  for  the  overthrow  of  Athens, 
which  in  spite  of  such  blots  remained  the  most  humane  state  in  the 
ancient  world.^° 

39PIut.  Nic.  11;  Ale.  13;  Thuc.  viii.  73;  Androtion,  FHG.  I.  p.  376.  48;  Philochonis,  op. 
cit.   p.   396.   79  b. ;   Aristoph.   Knights,  1303  f. 
40  Thuc.  V.  84-116;  Andoc.  (?)  Ale.  22;  Plut.  Ale.  16. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  390-457,  458-463;  Grote,  chs.  xlviii-lvi;  Holm,  II,  306-410;  Beloch, 
Greich.  Gesch,  II,  286-354;  Att.  Politik  seit  Pericles,  1-62  (Leipzig,  1884); 
Busolt,  III,  591-1271;  Meyer,  IV,  273-495;  Grundy,  Thucydides  and  the  His- 
tory of  His  Age  (London,  1911);  Whibley,  Political  Parties  in  Athens  During 
the  Peloponnesian  Wars  (Cambridge:  University  Press,  1889);  Croiset,  Aristo- 
phanes and  the  Political  Parties  at  Athens  (Tr.  by  Loeb),  (Macmillan,  1909), 
1-114;  Cavaignac,  Histoire  de  Vantiquite,  II,  119-139;  Ferguson,  Greek  Imper- 
ialism, 65-78;  Zimmern,  Greek  Commonwealth,  418-441. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE    SICILIAN    EXPEDITION    AND    THE    LAST    YEARS 

OF  THE  WAR 

I.     Italy  and  Sicily  Before  the  Expedition 

474-415 

Italy  after  474.  Meantime  events  were  happening  in  Italy  and 
Sicily  which  affected  the  destiny  of  the  Hellenic  race.  The  great 
naval  battle  off  Cumae  marks  the  beginning  of  the  decline  of  the 
Etruscans.^  Their  devotion  to  luxury,  their  lack  of  a  strong  central 
authority,  and  after  no  long  time  the  aggressions  of  the  barbarous 
Gauls,  brought  political  stagnation  and  finally  decay.  Rome  and 
the  Latins,  however  receptive  of  Hellenic  culture,  however  martial  in 
spirit  and  in  organization,  remained  more  than  a  century  too  weak 
for  an  imperial  policy.  Meanwhile  it  was  left  to  the  Sabellians,  a 
numerous  virile  people  of  the  interior,  to  succeed  the  Etruscans  as 
the  dominant  power. 

Sabellians  and  Greeks.  Their  aggressive  movements  were  caused 
by  overpopulation.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century  they  poured 
down  into  the  fertile  district  about  the  bay  of  Naples.  They  seized 
Etruscan  Capua  (438),  then  Hellenic  Cumae  (421),  and,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Naples,  the  whole  region,  Henceforth  known  as  Campania. - 
The  conquest  by  no  means  rested  here.  Farther  south  the  territory 
about  the  Gulf  of  Salerno  fell  into  their  hands.  Poseidonia,  the  seat 
of  a  beautiful  temple  to  Poseidon,  was  among  the  captive  cities  (about 
400).  Its  inhabitants  forgot  their  native  speech  and  adopted  the 
institutions  and  habits  of  the  conquerors.  Once  a  year,  however, 
they  held  a  Hellenic  festival,  in  which  they  recalled  their  ancient 
speech  and  customs,  and  wept  over  the  loss  of  them.^  In  this  region 
Elea  alone,  a  small  state  yet  organized  for  defence  by  her  philoso- 

1  p.   187. 

2  Diod    xii.  31,  76;  Livy  iv.  37,  44     The  dates  given  are  those  of  Diodorus. 

3  Aristoxenus,  FHG.  II.  p.  291.  90;  Strabo  vi.  1. 

316 


SICILIAN  EXPEDITION:  LAST  YEARS  OF  WAR       317 

phers,  maintained  her  independence.*  Those  Sabellians  who  had 
thus  advanced  into  southern  Italy  were  grouped  in  one  powerful  tribe, 
or  federation  of  tribes,  known  as  the  Lucanians.  At  this  time  they 
were  the  strongest  and  most  aggressive  people  of  the  peninsula.  Most 
of  the  Greek  cities  which  remained  free  formed  a  close  defensive 
alliance  against  them.  These  states  were  in  general  highly  prosper- 
ous. The  Sabellians  adopted  from  them  their  useful  arts,  their  armor, 
and  even  the  Pythagorean  philosophy.'' 

Prosperity  of  Hellenic  Sicily,  after  474.  Sicily,  too,  had  wars 
with  the  natives  of  the  interior;  but  they  were  less  formidable  and 
gradually  yielded  to  the  political  supremacy,  as  well  as  to  the  culture, 
of  Hellas.  The  republics  had  their  internal  struggles  with  dema- 
gogues of  tyrannic  aspiration  or  with  the  rising  ochlocracy,  but  these 
troubles  were  little  hindrance  to  their  material  and  intellectual  pros- 
perity. The  Sicilians  traded  with  the  mother-country,  with  Latium, 
and  far  more  extensively  with  Carthage.  Increasing  wealth  brought 
the  citizens  comforts  unknown  to  the  mother-land  —  fine  soft  gar- 
ments, gold  and  silver  plate,  expensive  furniture  including  especially 
luxurious  beds  and  sofas.  At  Syracuse  the  art  of  cookery  reached  a 
high  degree  of  perfection;  and  the  well-to-do  rode  in  comfortable 
carriages,  while  the  richest  men  of  Athens  journeyed  on  foot,  or  at 
the  best  mounted  saddle  mules.  The  people  of  Acragas  were  building 
a  magnificent  temple  to  Zeus,  those  of  Selinus  a  still  greater  temple 
to  Apollo,  second  only  to  that  of  the  Ephesian  Artemis  within  the 
Hellenic  world.  In  their  luxuries,  in  the  magnificence  of  their  build- 
ings, in  the  soft  sensuousness  of  their  fine  arts  they  departed  widely 
from  the  Hellenic  precept  of  self-restraint,  to  assume  a  character  and 
follow  a  career  of  their  own.*^ 

Syracusan  ambition  and  Athenian  interference.  The  intel- 
lectual progress  of  the  Sicilians,  their  contribution  to  philosophy  and 
rhetoric,  has  been  mentioned  in  another  connection.  We  have  also 
considered  the  commercial  relations  of  Athens  with  Italy  and  Sicily, 

4  Strabo,    loc.    cit. :    the    Eleatic  Parmenides  and    his   successors. 

5  Later  fifth  century;  Diod.  xiv.  91.  1;  Polyb.  ii.  39.  6.  It  included  Elea,  Metapontum, 
Rhegium,   and  others,   afterward  Tarentum. 

i;  Internal  troubles;  Diod.  xi.  86  f.  Sicel  ri.sing  and  its  suppression;  xi.  76,  88  ff.  Hel- 
lenization  of  non-Greek  cities  shown  by  coins;  Holm,  Gesch.  Siz.  I.  432;  cf.  Hist,  of  Greece 
II.  418  ff,  Freeman  II,  p.  422  ff;  Prosperity;  Diod.  xi.  68,  72.  Hill,  Coins  of  Ancient  SicUy, 
(Westminster:  Constable,  1903),  p.  86  ff.  (period  480-413).  Sicilian  luxury;  wealth  and  lux- 
ury of  Acragas,  Diod.  xiii.  I.  81  ff.  Emped.  in  Diog.  Laert.  viii.  2.  7  population  800,000; 
story  of  Acragantines  indulging  in  luxuries  as  though  they  would  die  to-morrow  and  build- 
ing houses  as  though  they  would  live  forever;  cf.  Aelian  V.  H.  xii.  29.  Excessive  drinking 
of  some;  Athen.  ii.  5.  Fine  clothes  and  furniture;  Diod.  xiii.  82;  Ael.  V.  H.  iii.  29.  Syra- 
cusan luxury.     Cooking;  Athen.  xii.  34;  vii.  107;  vi.  28;  i.  49;  ii.  29;  v.  28;  vii.  26. 


318  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

leading  to  treaties  with  individual  cities.  This  political  interfer- 
ence was  promoted  by  the  growth  of  Syracuse  in  power  and  in  ambi- 
tion. She  built  a  great  fleet,  increased  her  military  force;  and  with 
the  sympathy  of  her  Doric  neighbors,  she  began  a  policy  of  aggres- 
sion against  Leontini  and  other  near-lying  Chalcidic  cities.  Early 
in  the  Peloponnesian  war  Leontini  sent  an  embassy,  headed  by  the 
famous  rhetorician  Gorgias,  native  of  that  city,  to  Athens,  where  his 
rhythmic  prose  entranced  the  Athenians,  who  never  before  had  heard 
such  musical  discourse.  They  sent  small  aid,  which  accomplished 
little  (427)." 

II.     The  Expedition  415-413 

The  Athenians  decree  an  expedition  to  Sicily,  415.  The 
triumphant  rise  of  Alcibiades,  however,  meant  a  resumption  of  the 
policy  of  conquest,  and  nowhere  opened  so  fair  a  field  as  Sicily. 
Segesta,  a  native  city  in  alliance  with  Athens,  asked  protection  againsl. 
Selinus,  and  promised  to  pay  the  expenses  of  an  expedition.  This 
was  the  pretext  for  an  invasion  of  Sicily.  Nicias  strenuously  op- 
posed the  undertaking.  His  contention  was  that  Athens  needed  all 
her  strength  for  restoring  and  maintaining  her  empire,  and  for  her 
own  defence  against  Thebes  and  Peloponnese;  furthermore,  even  if 
Sicily  could  be  conquered,  it  would  be  impossible  to  hold  that  great 
island  in  subjection.  Against  the  judgment  of  Nicias  Alcibiades 
persuaded  the  Athenians  to  send  a  fleet  of  a  hundred  and  thirty-four 
triremes,  conveying  a  force  of  five  thousand  heavy  infantry.  The 
commanders  were  Nicias,  Alcibiades,  and  Lamachus.  The  last 
named  was  a  splendid  old  fighter  who  had  learned  warfare  in  the 
school  of  Pericles.* 

The  magnificent  fleet. 

On  the  fleet  the  greatest  pains  and  expense  had  been  lavished  by  the 
trierarchs  and  the  State.  The  public  treasury  gave  a  drachma  a  day  to 
each  sailor,  and  furnished  empty  hulls  for  sixty  swift  sailing  vessels,  and 
for  forty  transports  carrying  hoplites.  All  these  ships  were  manned  with 
the  best  crews  which  could  be  obtained.  The  trierarchs,  besides  the  pay 
given    by   the   State,   added   somewhat   more   from   their   own   means  to  the 

7  Earlier  progress  of  Sicily;  p.  188  f.  Connection  of  Athens  with  Italy  and  Sicily;  p.  178. 
246.  Syracusan  militarism;  Diod.  xii.  30  (439  B.  C).  Embassy  of  Gorgias;  Thuc.  iii.  90. 
Athenian  aid  to  Sicily,  p.  203,  308. 

8  Segesta;  p.  309;  Thuc.  vi.  6;  Diod.  xii.  82.  3-7,  Nicias  and  Alcibiades;  Thuc.  vi. 
8-26;  Plut.  Nic.  12-4;  Ale.  17  f . ;  Andocides,  Concerning  the  Mysteries,  II.— The  unfavor- 
able condition  of  Athens  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  Amphipolis  (p.  384  f.)  had  not  been 
recovered. 


SICILIAN  EXPEDITION:  LAST  YEARS  OF  WAR      319 

wages  of  the  upper  ranks  of  rowers  and  of  tlic  petty  officers.  The  figure- 
heads and  other  fittings  provided  by  them  were  of  the  most  costly  descrip- 
tion. Every  one  .strove  to  the  utmost  that  his  own  ship  might  excel  both 
in  beauty  and  swiftness.  The  infantry  had  been  well  selected  and  the  lists 
carefully  made  up.  There  was  the  keenest  rivalry  among  the  soldiers  in  the 
matter  of  arms  and  personal  equipment. 

While  at  home  the  Athenians  were  thus  competing  with  one  another  in 
the  performance  of  their  several  duties,  to  the  rest  of  Hellas  the  expedition 
seemed  to  be  a  grand  display  of  their  power  and  greatness,  rather  than  a 
preparation  for  war.  If  any  one  had  reckoned  up  the  whole  expenditure  of 
(1)  the  State,  (2)  individual  soldiers  and  others,  including  in  the  first  not 
only  what  the  City  had  already  laid  out,  but  what  was  entrusted  to  the 
generals,  and  in  the  second  what  either  at  the  time  or  afterward  private 
persons  spent  upon  their  outfit,  or  the  trierarchs  upon  their  ships,  the  pro- 
vision for  the  long  voyage  which  everyone  may  be  supposed  to  have  carried 
with  him  over  and  above  his  public  pay,  and  what  soldiers  or  traders  may 
have  taken  for  purposes  of  exchange,  he  would  have  found  that  altogether 
an  immense  sum  amounting  to  many  talents  was  withdrawn  from  the  city. 
Men  were  quite  amazed  at  the  boldness  of  the  scheme  and  the  magnificence 
of  the  spectacle,  which  were  everywhere  spoken  of,  no  less  than  at  the  great 
disproportion  of  the  force  when  compared  with  that  of  the  enemy  against 
whom  it  was  intended.  Never  had  a  greater  expedition  been  sent  to  a 
foreign  land;  never  was  there  an  enterprise  in  which  the  hope  of  future 
success  seemed  to  be  better  justified  by  actual  power.^ 

Mutilation  of  the  Hermae,  415.  Some  time  before  the  departure 
of  the  expedition  the  Athenians  were  horrified  one  morning  to  find 
that  the  Hermae  in  front  of  their  doors  had  all  been  mutilated. 
These  were  square  stone  pillars,  ending  at  the  top  in  the  head  of 
Hermes  or  of  some  other  god,  and  were  highly  venerated  as  the 
guardians  of  peace  and  public  order.  The  people  were  seized  with 
terror  lest,  as  a  step  toward  overthrowing  the  democracy,  a  band  of 
conspirators  might  thus  have  attempted  to  deprive  the  City  of  her 
divine  protectors.  In  a  panic  the  citizens  assembled  on  the  Pnyx  and 
voted  immunity  and  rewards  to  any  who  should  inform  against  the 
perpetrators.  On  the  mutilation  of  the  Hermae  there  was  no  dis- 
closure; probably  it  was  the  act  of  young  men  in  a  drunken  frolic. 
Informers  revealed  the  fact,  however,  that  certain  persons,  among  them 
Alcibiades,  had  profaned  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  by  parodying  them 
at  private  gatlierings  in  the  presence  of  the  uninitiated.  Democratic 
politicians,  opposed  to  Alcibiades.  schemed  to  bring  him  to  trial  for 
the  sacrilege;  but  appreciating  his  popularity  with  the  soldiers  and 
sailors,  they  delayed  the  prosecution  till  the  armament  had  sailed 
away.     The  incident  proves  that  in  spite  of  all  progress  in  culture 

9Thuc.  vi.  3;  cf.  Diod.  xil.  2  f . ;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  70  (p.  138  f.). 


320  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  Athenian  masses  were  as  devoted  as  ever  to  the  traditional  re- 
ligion.^° 

Condemnation  and  escape  of  Alcibiades,  415.  After  the  depar- 
ture of  the  fleet  the  enemies  of  Alcibiades  resumed  their  agitation 
against  him.  An  indictment  for  sacrilege  was  drawn  up  against  him 
by  Thessalus,  son  of  Cimon;  and  the  Salaminia,  an  official  trireme, 
sailed  to  Sicily  to  order  his  return.  On  the  homeward  voyage  he 
made  his  escape  to  Peloponnese,  and  finally  took  up  his  residence 
at  Sparta.  There  his  counsels  proved  most  potent  for  the  overthrow 
of  his  country.^ ^ 

The  Athenians  in  Sicily,  415-4.  Meanwhile  the  Athenian  com- 
manders, disagreeing  as  to  plan,  frittered  away  nearly  a  year  in  petty 
undertakings,  wasting  their  resources,  dispiriting  their  own  men,  and 
exciting  contempt  in  the  minds  of  the  Sicilian  Greeks.  In  the  fol- 
lowing year  they  besieged  Syracuse  (414);  but  Lamachus  was  killed, 
and  Nicias  proved  wholly  incompetent  for  vigorous  offensive.  When 
autumn  came,  the  besiegers  were  in  wretched  plight;  and  Nicias, 
having  made  no  appreciable  headway,  would  gladly  have  abandoned 
the  siege  but  dared  not  face  the  Athenians  in  assembly.  When 
however  they  received  his  report,  which  detailed  the  condition  of 
the  armament,  and  asked  that  it  be  recalled  or  reinforced,  the  assem- 
bly, far  from  abandoning  the  enterprise,-  voted  heavy  reinforce- 
ments.^^ 

Renewal  of  the  war  in  Greece;  second  expedition  to  Sicily, 
413.  Peloponnesians  and  Boeotians  resumed  the  war,  and  invaded 
Attica  in  the  spring  of  413.  On  the  suggestion  of  Alcibiades  they 
established  a  permanent  garrison  at  Decelea  in  northern  Attica.  As  a 
result  the  Athenians  gave  up  their  country  homes,  and  the  farms  and 
vineyards  which  they  loved,  and  withdrew  permanently  into  the  city. 
Thousands  of  slaves  deserted  to  the  enemy;  industry  and  commerce 
shrank;  and  the  people  were  soon  cramped  with  want.  In  spite  of 
all  these  misfortunes  and  of  even  greater  dangers  impending,  they 
sent  to  Syracuse  another  great  armament  of  seventy-three  triremes, 
with  five  thousand  heavy  infantry  on  board,  under  the  command 
of  Demosthenes,  their  ablest  general.     The  persistence  of  the  Athen- 

lOThuc.  vi.  27  ff . ;  Andoc.  Myst.  11  ff . ;  Plato,  Alcibiades,  18  f. ;  Plut.  Ale.  1&-22;  Diod. 
xiii.  5.     Sale  of  confiscated  properties;  Ditt.   I.  nos.  96-103. 

11  Thuc.  iv.  53,  60  f . ;  Plut.  Ak.  22  (indictment  quoted),  23;  Nepos,  Ale.  3.  Frag,  of  a 
Life  of  Aleibiades,  in  Ox.   Pap.   III.   no.  411. 

12  Thuc.  vi.  61-vii.  35;  Diod.  xiii.  4-9;  Justin  v.  4;  Plut.  Nie.   14-20. 


SICILIAN  EXPEDITION:  LAST  YEARS  OF  WAR       321 

ians  in  their  plan  of  conquest,  and  their  energy  in  mustering  for  it 
all  available  resources  in  the  midst  of  dangers  at  home,  are  marvel- 
lous.^'' 

Disaster,  413.  On  his  arrival  at  Syracuse  Demosthenes  found  the 
besiegers  in  a  miserable  condition.  They  had  lost  a  naval  battle  in 
the  harbor;  and  this  failure,  together  with  sickness  and  the  want  of 
material  comforts,  had  robbed  them  of  all  courage.  The  only  hope 
was  in  immediate  success.  The  strenuous  offensive  of  Demosthenes, 
however,  utterly  failed;  and  when  he  proposed  to  embark  the  army 
and  sail  away,  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  delayed  the  superstitious  Nicias. 
Meanwhile  the  Syracusans  again  defeated  the  Athenian  fleet,  after 
which  they  blocked  the  mouth  of  the  harbor.  Nothing  remained  to 
the  besiegers  but  a  retreat  by  land.^* 

The  end.  After  great  suffering  and  loss  the  two  divisions  of  the 
retreating  army,  led  by  Demosthenes  and  Nicias  respectively,  were 
hemmed  in  and  compelled  to  surrender.  Many  were  taken  by 
individual  Syracusans  and  privately  sold  into  slavery.  The  two  gen- 
erals were  put  to  death.  The  public  prisoners,  amounting  to  more 
than  seven  thousand  Athenians  and  allies,  were  imprisoned  in  stone 
quarries.  Packed  together  with  their  wounded  and  their  dead  in  a 
cramped  place,  with  no  shelter  from  the  rain  or  burning  sun,  with 
insufficient  food  and  water,  they  suffered  untold  agony.  After  ten 
weeks  the  miserable  survivors  were  rescued  from  these  horrors,  to  be 
sold  as  slaves.  Nothing  was  saved  from  the  two  glorious  fleets  that 
had  sailed  from  Peiraeus;  and  of  the  many  who  went  forth  few 
returned  home.^^ 

A  crisis  in  Hellenic  history.  It  was  a  crisis  in  Hellenic  histor>'. 
The  Athenians  had  had  it  in  their  means  with  wise  management  to 
build  up  a  lasting  power,  the  strongest  in  Hellas,  to  win  recognition 
of  their  political  leadership  from  many  or  all  the  other  Greeks,  and 
to  lift  their  race  to  a  political  destiny  worthy  of  its  civilization.  All 
these  possibilities  they  sacrificed  to  a  scheme  of  conquest  ill-conceived 
and  managed  with  obstinate  folly.  As  a  far-off  result  of  their  failure 
the  political  supremacy  of  the  world  was  to  pass  to  a  people  who 
lacked  the  Hellenic  refinement  and  brain  power,  but  who  practically 
showed  greater  respect  for  the  rights  of  others. 

i;i  Thuc.  vii.  16-20,  27-35;  Ox    Hell.  U.  4;  Dioa.  xiu.  9;  Plut.  Nic.  2C  t. 

14Thuc.   vii.    42-74;   Diod.   xiii.    10-18. 

IsThuc.  vii.  75-87;  Diod.  xiii.  18  f . ;  Plut.  Nic.  26-9. 


322  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

III.     The  Last  Years  of  the  War 

Feelings  of  the  Athenians;  a  new  system  of  taxation,  412. 

For  a  time  the  Athenians  at  home  could  not  believe  that  a  disaster  so 
great  had  befallen  them.  When,  however,  they  came  to  appreciate  the 
truth,  they  vented  their  rage  upon  the  orators  and  the  soothsayers  who 
had  persuaded  them  to  the  expedition.  At  first  they  were  dejected 
by  the  utter  hopelessness  of  the  situation,  their  want  of  men,  money, 
and  ships;  but  soon  their  elastic  spirits  rose,  and  they  determined  to 
persist  against  all  odds.  To  increase  their  revenue  to  the  uttermost 
without  seeming  to  add  new  burdens  to  their  allies,  they  displaced  all 
tributes  by  a  customs  duty  of  five  per  cent,  on  imports  and  exports 
throughout  the  empire.  This  system  remained  to  the  end  of  the 
war.^'' 

A  universal  coalition  against  Athens.  The  Hellenes  eagerly 
jtlocked  to  the  Lacedaemonian  standard  in  the  hope  soon  of  trampling 
upon  the  common  foe.  The  Persian  king,  on  condition  of  recovering 
the  Greek  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  gave  money  and  promised  the  aid  of  a 
Phoenician  fleet.  The  maritime  allies  began  to  revolt  against  Athens, 
and  the  victorious  navy  of  Syracuse  appeared  in  Aegean  waters. 
But  the  persistence  of  the  Athenians  stripped  of  resources,  against 
these  overwhelming  odds  during  a  period  of  eight  years,  is  evidence 
of  an  almost  indomitable  will.^" 

Democracy  curbed;  the  probouli,  412-11.  The  Sicilian  disaster 
had  a  serious  effect  on  Athenian  politics.  There  had  always  been  a 
strong  minority  opposed  to  popular  government;  recent  misfortunes 
strengthened  their  hands  by  seemingly  proving  the  worthlessness  of 
democracy,  and  for  the  time  being  the  majority  recognized  the  need 
of  a  modification  of  the  constitution.  The  most  crying  demand  was 
for  a  responsible  magistracy.  The  people  accordingly  instituted  a 
board  of  ten  probouli  —  Committee  of  Public  Safety  —  to  be  filled  by 
mature  men  annually  elected.  They  were  to  take  the  place  of  the 
prytaneis  in  initiating  administrative  measures,  to  control  finance,  and 
to  attend  to  the  building  and  the  equipment  of  the  navy.  This  whole- 
some reform  was  largely  stultified  by  the  choice  of  elderly  men,  like 
the  poet,  Sophocles,  who  lacked  resolution  and  energy.^* 

16  Thuc.  vii.  28.  4;  cf.  Busolt,  Griech.  Gesch.  III.  1407  f.  This  measure  had  been 
adopted  in  the  previous  year,  and  was  now  carried  into  effect. 

17  Thuc.   vii.    1   ff, ;   Died.   xiii.   34,  36  ff. 

18  Earlier  oligarchic  strivings;  p.  117  ff.,  313  f.  The  probouli;  Thuc.  viii.  1.  3;  Arist. 
Const.  Ath.  29.  2;  Bekker,  A  need.  I.  298.  25;  Aristoph.  Lysutrate,  387  ff.  (presented  m 
411).  Council  restricted  by  the  probouli;  Aristoph.  Thfsniophoriaeusae,  808  f. ;  Arist.  Rhet- 
oric, iii.  18,  1419  a;  Lysias,  Eratosth.  65.    First  elected  for  412-11;  H.  Civ.  p.  346,  n.  3. 


SICILIAN  EXPEDITION:  LAST  YEARS  OF  WAR      323 

An  oligarchic  plot  in  the  army,  411.  I'he  first  decisive  step 
toward  abolishing  the  democracy,  however,  was  taken  by  an  oligarchic 
club  of  officers  in  the  army  then  encamped  in  Samos.  Their  leading 
motive  was  to  secure  for  themselves  the  place  in  the  government  to 
which  in  their  opinion  their  rank  entitled  them.  At  the  same  time 
they  were  receiving  overtures  from  Alcibiades.  It  chanced  that, 
having  fallen  out  with  Agis,  king  of  Lacedaemon,  he  had  passed  over 
to  tlae  Persians  and  was  now  plotting  his  return  to  Athens.  With  no 
hope  of  a  recall  through  the  democracy,  he  promised  the  Athenians  at 
Samos  that  if  they  should  set  up  an  oligarchy,  Tissaphernes,  satrap 
of  Sardis,  would  transfer  the  Persian  support  from  Lacedaemon  to 
Athens.     Though  groundless  the  promise  had  its  effect. ^^ 

Oligarchic  plottings  in  Athens.  Peisander  and  other  envoys 
from  the  Club  at  Samos  repaired  to  Athens,  and  against  a  storm  of 
indignation  proposed  an  oligarchy  with  a  view  chiefly  to  winning 
Persian  favor.  At  the  same  time  he  joined  with  Antiphon,  a  legal 
adviser,  the  brain  of  the  impending  revolution,  in  organizing  the 
oligarchic  clubs  which  had  existed  in  Athens  from  immemorial  time. 
It  was  their  policy  to  intimidate  tlie  multitude  by  assassinating  their 
leaders.-" 

Establishment  of  an  oligarchy  of  the  Four  Hundred,  411.  In 
a  visit  to  Alcibiades,  Peisander  discovered  that  the  wily  exile  had 
merely  been  tricking  him  with  promises.  Nevertheless  on  his  return 
to  Athens  he  proceeded  with  the  establishment  of  an  oligarchy.  Ter- 
rorized by  assassinations,  the  citizens  permitted  the  institution  of  a 
council  of  Four  Hundred,  who  should  appoint  officials  and  conduct 
the  administration  with  absolute  power.  As  a  sop  to  the  moderates 
this  form  of  government  was  termed  provisional,  and  there  was  pro- 
posed a  "  definitive  "  constitution,  under  which  the  sovereignty  was 
to  be  held  by  the  five  thousand  wealthiest  citizens  organized  in  four 
great  councils  rotating  annually.  Some  features  of  this  constitution 
were  borrowed  from  Boeotia.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  leaders 
of  the  oligarchic  movement  were  neither  eupatrids  nor  experienced 
politicians.  They  were  educated  men,  who  having  learned  their  pol- 
itics in  the  schools  of  the  sophists,  were  now  engaged  in  political 
experimentation.  Normally  the  Athenian  constitution  was  an  aggre- 
gate of  traditional  customs  modified  by  written  laws.     Now  for  the 

l9Thuc.  viii.  45-8;  Plut.  Ale.  25  f. 
20  Thuc.   viii.   48-56,  63-6. 


324  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

first  time,  as  could  be  expected  of  sophists,  it  was  a  document;  both 
the  provisional  and  definitive  constitutions  were  written.  The  lead- 
ing oligarchs  intended  by  deferring  the  call  for  the  Five  Thousand  to 
keep  the  Four  Hundred  permanently  in  power.  A  commendable 
feature  of  the  new  system  was  the  abolition  of  all  pay  for  civil  ser- 
vices, except  to  the  nine  archons  and  the  prytaneis  for  the  time  being, 
and  the  devotion  of  the  entire  revenue  to  the  war.^^ 

The  rule  of  the  Four  Hundred;  Alcibiades  recalled,  411.  The 
Four  Hundred  proved  unprincipled,  unpatriotic,  and  incompetent. 
They  could  maintain  themselves  in  no  other  way  than  by  terrorism 
and  secret  murder;  they  offered  to  buy  peace  of  Lacedaemon  at  any 
price,  and  their  weakness  lost  Euboea  to  the  enemy.  No  sooner  had 
their  position  grown  insecure  than  they  split  into  two  factions.  The  ex- 
tremists were  led  by  Antiphon,  Peisander  and  one  or  two  others.  The 
moderates  followed  Theramenes,  who  had  been  largely  instrumental 
in  establishing  the  Four  Hundred,  but  whose  ideal  was  a  limitation 
of  the  franchise  to  those  who  could  equip  themselves  for  service  in 
the  heavy  infantry.  His  faction  was  supported  by  the  troops  at 
Samos,  who  having  overthrown  their  oligarchic  leaders,  elected 
Thrasybulus,  an  able  and  undoubted  patriot,  to  the  generalship,  re- 
called Alcibiades,  and  placed  him  in  chief  command.  A  democrat 
once  more,  Alcibiades  stood  ready  to  devote  his  extraordinary  talents 
to  repairing  the  havoc  he  had  wrought  in  his  country's  fortunes. 
These  circumstances  emboldened  Theramenes  and  the  moderates  to 
overthrow  the  Four  Hundred,  after  its  rule  of  four  months,  and  to 
establish  in  power  nominally  the  Five  Thousand,  in  reality  all 
above  the  thetic  census. ^- 

Command  of  Alcibiades,  411-07;  battle  off  Cyzicus,  410.  Un- 
der the  weak  rule  of  the  Four  Hundred  the  war,  which  hitherto  had 
been  limited  to  the  Aegean,  extended  to  the  Hellespontic  allies  of 
Athens.  Thus  her  resources  were  further  lessened.  In  that  quarter, 
however,  Alcibiades  gained  a  brilliant  victory  over  the  enemy  off 
Cyzicus.  Their  entire  fleet  was  taken  or  destroyed,  and  Mindarus, 
their  commander,  was  killed.  A  despatch  sent  by  the  second  in  com- 
mand, but  intercepted  on  its  way  to  Sparta,  read:  "  Ships  gone, 
Mindarus  dead;   the  men  starving;   at  our  wits'  end  what  to  do." 

21  Thuc.  viii.  67-70;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  29-32.  Aristotle  drew  his  constitutional  material 
frona  documents,  and  therefore  in  cases  of  irreconcilable  differences  with  Thucydides  in 
such  matters,  he  is  to  be  preferred.     Lvsias  (  ?),  For  Polystratus,  adds  important  facts. 

22  Thuc.  viii.  70-Sl ;  Diod.  xiii.  37:  Plut.  Ale.  26. 


SICILIAN  EXPEDITION:  LAST  YEARS  OF  WAR       325 

The  Spartans  now  offered  peace  on  the  l^asis  of  the  status  quo;  but 
the  Athenians,  led  by  Clcophon  the  lyre-maker,  rejected  the  terms. 
It  proved  to  be  a  great  mistake;  but  they  were  unduly  elated  by  the 
victory  and  by  their  hope  in  Alcibiadcs.-'"' 

Complete  restoration  of  the  democracy,  410.  It  was  doubtless 
under  the  impression  of  the  victory  that  the  Athenians  restored  the 
complete  democracy  and  required  every  citizen  to  take  a  solemn  oath 
to  support  it.  About  the  same  time  they  appointed  a  commission  to 
revise  various  public  and  criminal  laws  and  to  inscribe  them  on 
stone.  Among  the  products  of  their  labor  we  have  preserved  a  mu- 
tilated inscription  of  Draco's  laws  of  homicide  and  a  still  more  frag- 
mentary statute  for  defining  the  judicial  competence  of  the  Five  Hun- 
dred and  of  the  assembly.  About  the  same  time,  as  the  revenues  were 
increasing,  the  Athenians  reintroduced  pay  for  official  service,  and 
began  to  celebrate  the  festivals  with  the  old  splendor,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  soldiers  and  sailors,  in  default  of  pay,  had  often  to 
plunder  the  allies.  The  extreme  want  of  the  poor  in  the  City,  verging 
upon  starvation,  led  to  the  distribution  of  two  obols  daily  among  the 
most  needy.  The  revenue,  however,  soon  dwindled  and  poverty  in- 
creased.-* 

Cyrus  and  Lysander  at  the  seat  of  war,  408.  The  temporary 
success  of  Athens  was  partly  due  to  the  vacillation  and  rivalry  of 
the  satraps,  Tissaphemes  of  Sardis  and  Phamabazus  of  the  Helle- 
spontic  region.  In  408  Darius  sent  Cyrus,  the  younger  of  his  two 
sons,  to  take  the  satrapy  of  Sardis  with  large  powers  in  order  to  give 
all  possible  aid  to  the  Peloponnesians.  The  young  man  brought 
great  ambition  and  unusual  intelligence  to  the  work.  In  the  same 
year  there  came  from  Sparta  to  the  seat  of  war  Lysander,  an  able 
commander  and  crafty  manager  of  men.  His  ultimate  object  was 
nothing  less  than  a  throne  at  Sparta.  To  reach  the  goal  of  his  po- 
litical hope,  he  needed  military  renown  and  an  army  devoted  to  him- 
self. In  brief,  he  was  the  Spartan  counterpart  of  Alcibiades.  Cyrus 
readily  fell  under  his  influence.-^ 

Battle  off  Notium,  407;  retirement  of  Alcibiades.  In  the  fol- 
lowing year  Lysander  defeated  an  Athenian  fleet  off  Notium.     Dur- 

23  Operations  in  the  late  months  of  411;  Thuc.  viii.  98-109.  Cyzicus;  Xenophon,  Hel- 
lenica,  i.  1.   1-23;  Diod.  xiii.  49-51;   Plut.  Ale.  28;  Polyaenus  i.  40.  9. 

24  Democratic  restoration;  B.  Civ.  no.  77;  IG.  I.  57;  Andoc.  Myst.  96.  The  diobely  (dis- 
tribution of  two  obols);  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  28;  Polit.  ii.  7.  19,  1267  b;  Aeschines,  Faithless 
Embassy,  76.     It  began  in  410-9;  Ditt.  I.  no.   109.  ^        ,   . 

25  Xen.  Hell.  i.  4  f. ;  Anabasis  i.  9  et  pass,  (character  of  Cyrus);  Plut.  Lysander,  1^; 
Theopomp.   FHG.   I.   p.   281.   21   f. 


326  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

injT  the  absence  of  Alcibiades  his  lieutenant  Antiochus  had  ventured 
battle  contrary  to  orders,  and  lost  fifteen  ships  of  war.  It  was  a 
mortal  blow  to  the  ascendancy  of  Alcibiades.  Forgetting  his  uniform 
success  against  overwhelming  foes  during  the  past  four  years,  the 
Athenians,  misled  by  his  enemies,  defeated  his  candidacy  for  the 
following  year.  Fearing  to  return  home,  he  retired  to  the  castles 
on  the  Hellespont  and  Propontis  which  he  had  prepared  against  such 
a  contingency,  and  from  which  he  quietly  reviewed  the  further  opera- 
tions of  the  war.-® 

The  battle  of  Arginusae,  406.  Both  parties  put  forth  Herculean 
efforts  in  the  hope  of  deciding  the  struggle  in  one  more  campaign. 
Callicratidas,  supplanting  Lysander,  commanded  a  hundred  and 
twenty  ships.  The  Athenians  under  eight  generals  met  him  with  a 
hundred  and  fifty  triremes  near  the  islands  of  Arginusae.  In  no 
other  naval  battle  between  Greeks  were  so  many  ships  and  men  en- 
gaged. It  was  a  complete  victory  for  Athens.  Seventy  vessels  of 
the  Peloponnesians  with  their  crews,  amounting  to  fourteen  thousand 
men  and  including  their  commander,  were  lost.  The  Athenians  lost 
twenty-five  ships  with  at  least  two  thousand  sailors,  who  failed  of 
rescue  because  of  a  storm.  In  grief  and  indignation  over  the  death 
of  so  many  kinsmen  and  fellow-citizens,  the  Athenians  at  home 
deposed  the  commanders  from  office,  and  brought  to  trial  before  the 
assembly  the  six  who  ventured  to  return  to  the  City.  In  violation  of 
the  constitution  they  by  a  single  vote  condemned  the  accused  to  death. 
Among  these  victims  of  popular  fury  was  Pericles,  the  son  of  Pericles 
and  Aspasia."^ 

Battle  of  Aegospotami,  405.  After  another  vain  effort  to  negoti- 
ate peace  with  Athens,  Lacedaemon  again  sent  Lysander  to  the  seat 
of  war;  and  the  Athenians  despatched  against  him  their  last  possible 
fleet  manned  with  their  last  available  crews.  A  hundred  and  eighty 
Athenian  ships  confronted  two  hundred  of  the  Peloponnesians  in  the 
Hellespont.  The  Athenian  fleet,  stationed  on  the  European  side  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Aegospotami  river,  was  taken  by  surprise  while  the 
crews  were  searching  for  provisions  on  shore.  Possibly  one  or  more 
of  their  generals  betrayed  the  fleet  into  Lysander's  hands.  At  all 
events  it  was  for  him  a  bloodless  victory'.  The  Athenian  prisoners 
were  massacred.     Conon,  one  of  the  generals,  escaped  to  Cyprus  with 

26Xen.  Hell.  i.   5.   11-18;  Diod.  xiii.  71-4;  Plut.  Ale.  35  f. ;  Lys.  5. 

27  Xen.  Hell.  i.  6;  Diod.  xiii.  97-100.     rondemnation  of  the  generals;   Xen.  Hell.  i.   7;   ii. 
3.  32,  35;  Memorabilia,  i.   1.   18;  Diod.  xiii.   101-3. 


SICILIAN  EXPEDITION:  LAST  YEARS  OF  WAR       327 

eight  ships,  having  sent  the  official  trireme  Paralus  to  Peiraeus  with 
the  sad  news.^* 

The  Athenians  receive  the  news. 

It  was  night  when  the  Paralus  reached  Athens  with  her  evil  tidings,  on 
receipt  of  which  a  bitter  wail  of  woe  broke  forth.  From  Peiraeus,  following 
the  line  of  the  Long  Walls  up  to  the  heart  of  the  City,  it  swept  and  swelled, 
as  each  man  to  his  neighbor  passed  on  the  news.  On  that  night  no  man 
slept.  There  was  mourning  and  sorrow  for  those  that  were  lost,  but  the 
lamentation  for  the  dead  was  merged  in  even  deeper  sorrow  for  themselves, 
as  they  pictured  the  evils  they  were  about  to  suffer,  the  like  of  which  they 
had  themselves  inflicted  on  the  Melians — who  were  colonists  of  the  Lace- 
daemonians—  when  they  mastered  them  by  siege;  or  on  the  men  of  Histiaea, 
on  Scionc  and  Torone,  on  the  Aeginetans  and  on  many  other  Hellenes.^^ 

Exhaustion  of  Athens;  measures  of  desperation.  The  resolu- 
tion, passed  next  day,  to  put  the  city  in  condition  to  endure  a  siege, 
could  not  long  avail;  for  Athens  had  no  ships,  men,  or  money,  with 
which  to  resist.  All  her  remaining  allies  revolted  excepting  Samos, 
to  whom  in  gratitude  she  granted  her  citizenship  ^°  Had  this  spirit 
of  liberty  been  adopted  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the  result 
would  have  been  far  different.  No  prudence  now,  however,  could 
rescue  the  city  from  her  enemies.  Arriving  with  his  fleet,  Lysander 
blockaded  the  ports,  while  Agis  closely  invested  the  city  by  land. 
Even  then  no  one  dared  speak  of  submission  while  negotiations  for 
peace  involved  some  hope  of  fair  terms. 

Peace,  404,  In  a  Peloponnesian  congress  many  allies,  led  by 
Corinthians  and  Thebans.  proposed  to  blot  Athens  out  of  existence, 
and  to  enslave  her  citizens.  "  The  Lacedaemonians  replied  that  they 
would  never  reduce  to  slavery  a  city  which  was  itself  an  integral  part 
of  Greece,  and  had  performed  a  great  and  noble  service  to  Hellas  in 
the  most  perilous  of  emergencies."  ^^  The  Lacedaemonians  were 
probably  actuated,  too,  by  the  desire  to  maintain  in  central  Greece  a 
counterpoise  to  Thebes,  whose  self-aggrandizement  had  for  some  time 
been  exciting  their  suspicion.^-  In  accordance  with  the  views  of 
Sparta  the  following  terms  of  peace  were  proposed:  "  That  the  Long 
Walls  and  the  fortifications  of  Peiraeus  should  be  destroyed;  that  the 
Athenian  fleet  with  the  exception  of  twelve  ships  should  be  surren- 
dered; that  the  exiles  should  be  restored;  and  lastly  that  the  Athenians 

28  Xen.  Hell.  ii.  1;  Diod.  xiii.  104-6;  Plut.  Lys.  7-13;  Ale.  36  f . ;  Nepos,  Lys.  8;  Polyaen. 
i.   45.  2.     160  ships  were  captured. 

29  Xen.   Hell.   ii.  2.   3. 

30  H.  Civ.  no.  75;  Xen.  Hell.  ii.  2.  6. 

31  Xen.  Hell.   ii.  2.  20.     See  also  §19;  O.x.  Hell.  12.  2;   Plut.  Lys.  19. 

32  Botsford,  in  Pol.  Sci.  Quart.  XV.  294. 


328 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


should  acknowledge  the  headship  of  Lacedaemon  in  peace  and  war, 
leavino;  to  her  the  choice  of  friends  and  foes,  and  following  her  lead 
by  land  and  sea."  ^^  Necessarily  Athens  accepted  the  terms,  for  her 
people  were  starving,  and  from  her  position  as  the  first  power  in 
Hellas  she  sank  to  a  second-rate  dependency  of  Sparta. 


33  Xen.  Hell.  ii.  2.  20. 


ADDITIONAL  READING 


Bury,  463-513;  Grote,  chs.  Ivii-lxvi ;  Holm,  II,  411-422,  466-515;  Meyer,  IV, 
496-666;  Beloch,  II,  354-432;  Busolt.  Ill,  1272-1638;  Freeman,  History  of 
Sicily,  II,  ch.  vii.  III  ch.  viii ;  Cavaignac,  II,  141-183;  Croiset,  Aristophanes  and 
the  Political  Parties  at  Athens  (Tr.  by  Loeb).  (Macmillan,  1909),  115-163; 
Beloch,  Attische  Politik  scit  Pericles  (Leipzig,  1884),  chs.  iii-v;  Whibley,  Polit- 
ical Parties  at  Athens  (Cambridge:  University  Press,  1889);  Calhoun,  Athen- 
ian Clubs  in  Politics  and  Litigation  (University  of  Texas,  1913). 


A  "HERMES" 


SOCRATES 
(CapitoHne  Museum,  Rome) 

CHAPTER  XX 
A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION 


431-404 

Summary  of  Periclean  culture.  The  culture  of  the  age  of  Peri- 
cles rested  essentially  on  traditional  belief  purified  by  an  expanding 
intelligence  and  humanism  —  belief  in  the  power,  wisdom,  and  good- 
ness of  the  Gods,  in  the  superiority  of  the  fathers  in  all  the  elements 
of  manhood,  in  the  beneficence  of  the  heroes  of  old,  eternal  models 
for  men,  and  closely  connected  with  them  a  lofty  ideal  of  philanthropy, 
of  protecting  the  weak  and  unfortunate  from  the  assaults  of  brute 
strength,  lastly  in  the  all-comprehensive  perfection  of  the  State  to 
whose  good  the  citizens  are  to  subordinate  their  individual  interests 
and  devote  their  lives  alike  in  war  and  peace. 

Growth  of  individualism.  Into  that  culture,  however,  there  had 
been  implanted  a  germ  which  was  to  prove  most  deadly  to  Greek 
ideals,  while  maturing  to  a  civilization  essentially  modern  in  charac- 
ter and  fruitage.     It  is  to  the  earlier  stage  of  this  growth  that  the 

.320 


330  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

present  chapter  is  devoted.  The  modernizing  principle,  grafted  as 
it  were  upon  the  tree  of  Hellenic  life,  was  individualism.  In  its 
planting  and  nurture  the  sophists  were  undoubtedly  but  the  directors 
of  a  general  movement  of  thought;  yet  adherence  to  the  traditional 
was  so  widespread  and  so  strong  that  throughout  the  period  of  the 
war  the  new  tendencies  struggled  with  the  old  in  a  conflict  fiercer 
and  deadlier  than  was  the  strife  of  battle  between  Athenians  and 
Peloponnesians. 

The  growth  of  theatrocracy.  While  the  masses,  as  will  hereafter 
be  explained,  held  firmly  to  the  traditional  religion,  in  other  fields 
they  were  readier  for  modern  ideas.  With  their  approbation  the 
statuesque  oratory  of  Pericles  gave  way  to  Cleon's  theatrical  delivery. 
Girding  up  his  himation,  he  strode  up  and  down  the  bema,  haranguing 
in  a  loud  voice  and  vilifying  his  opponents ;  thus  "  he  corrupted  the 
people  by  his  impulsive  manners."  ^  Similarly  in  the  theatre  the 
audience,  forgetting  that  they  were  present  to  receive  instruction,  made 
themselves  judges  of  the  music  and  the  poetry.  "  In  this  way  the 
theatres  from  being  mute  have  become  vocal,  as  though  they  had 
understanding  of  good  and  bad  in  music  and  poetry;  and  instead  of 
an  aristocracy,  an  evil  sort  of  theatrocracy  has  grown  up.  .  .  .  Con- 
sequent upon  this  freedom  comes  the  other  freedom,  of  disobedience 
to  rulers;  and  then  the  attempt  to  escape  the  control  and  exhortation 
of  father,  mother,  elders,  and  when  near  the  end,  the  control  also  of 
the  laws."  ^  This  license,  however,  this  disobedience  to  authority, 
affected  the  social  classes  in  proportion  to  their  rank:  it  demoralized 
the  knights  and  in  a  less  degree  the  heavy  infantry,  whereas  the  poor 
maintained  unimpaired  their  prompt,  orderly  obedience  to  their  super- 
intendents and  teachers  in  the  gymnastic  contests  and  choruses,  and  to 
their  officers  in  naval  service.^  The  blame  for  the  relaxation  of  self- 
restraint  is  laid  by  the  ancients  upon  their  political  and  intellectual 
leaders.  The  people  were  enticed  by  demagogues  from  their  ideals  of 
philanthropy,  conceived  by  Aeschylus  and  brought  into  public  life 
by  Pericles,  to  a  policy  of  brute  force  in  the  government  of  allies 
and  of  narrow,  material  selfishness  in  the  extension  of  their  power.^ 
From  the  habits  of  the  fathers,  the  wealthy  departed  most  widely  in 

1  Plut.  Ti.  Gracch.  2;  Aristoph.  Knights,  pass.;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  28.  3.    Like  Plato  (see 
n.   below)   Aristotle  here  takes  the  standpoint  of  an  artist. 

2  Plat,  Laws,  iii.   700. 

3  Xen.   Met)!,   iii.  5.   19. 

4  With  the  Funeral  Oration  of  Pericles  (Thuc.   ii.  40)  contrast  the  speeches  of  Cleon  and 
Diodotus  (Thuc.   iii.  37^8)  and  the  negotiations  with  the  Melians  (Thuc.   v.   85  ff.). 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  331 

huilding  for  themselves  more  sumi)tuous  homes,  with  colonnades  in 
front,  adorned  with  mural  paintings  and  supplied  with  comfortable 
furniture.  Paying  more  careful  attention  to  their  food,  they  engaged 
expert  cooks,  and  multiplied  the  number  of  dainty  dishes. '''  These, 
however,  were  l)Ut  the  promise  of  a  home  luxury,  which  was  to  grow 
and  expand  during  the  following  century. 

Deterioration  of  music.  These  beginnings  of  modem  life  in  the 
masses  were  stimulated  by  their  educators,  the  composers  of  music 
and  song.  "  They  were  men  of  genius  but  had  no  perception  of  what 
is  iust  and  lawful  in  music."*'  Melodies  were  mixed  and  misap- 
plied. The  classic  standard  fell  before  the  onslaught  of  "  rag-time," 
and  the  new  music  misdirected  the  people  to  individualistic  paths. 
The  last  great  lyrist  of  Hellas  was  Bacchylides;  after  him  the  decline 
of  the  chorus  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  dissolution  of  the  rhythmic 
life  of  the  city-state.  Interest  in  public  affairs  waned;  the  market- 
place thronged  with  idle  gossipers  while  the  dwindling  company  of 
patriots  assembled  on  the  Pnyx.  Among  the  well-to-do  was  forming 
a  class  of  men  who  shunned  politics  to  pursue  their  own  pleasures, 
or  to  avoid  contact  with  cobblers,  tanners,  and  hucksters,  with  the 
alleged  coarse  manners  and  unreasoning  will  of  the  multitude.'^ 

Euripides,  about  481-406.  His  first  tragedy,  455.  The  great 
exponent  of  the  new  spirit,  of  the  new  humanism,  was  the  poet 
Euripides.  *  His  life  was  contemporary  with  the  manhood  of  Sopho- 
cles; his  activity,  beginning  with  the  age  of  Pericles,  terminated 
shortly  before  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  war;  and  yet  an  age  seems 
to  separate  him  from  Sophocles.  In  the  older  poet  beats  the  heart  of 
Hellenism;  his  younger  contemporary  is  distinctly  the  first  of  the 
moderns.  A  careful  education  in  literature  and  athletics  was  followed 
by  a  brief  devotion  to  the  painter's  brush,  which  gave  him  an  appre- 
ciation of  landscape  and  art  noticeable  in  his  plays.  Particularly 
he  studied  the  philosophers  and  sophists,  and  was  among  the  first 
to  collect  a  library.^  It  is  equally  characteristic  of  him  that  he  held 
aloof  from  public  life,  to  apply  his  whole  energy  to  the  composition  of 
plays  —  through  no  disparagement  of  politics  but  in  the  conscious- 
ness that  his  own  mission  was  superior  to  any  civic  achievement  of 

5  Xen.  Mem.  iii.  8.  8-10;  iii.  14. 

6  Plat.   Laws,   iii.    700. 

7  Aristoph.  Acharn.  1  ff . ;  Xen.  Mem.  ii.   1.  8  f. ;   iii.  7. 

8  A  short  Vita  is  prefixed  to  his  works;  also  Satyrus,  Life  of  Euripides  (Hellenistic  age), 
in  Ox.  Pap.   ix.  no.   1176. 

9  Aristoph.  Frogs,  943,   1409;   Athen.   i.  4. 


332  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  individual.  The  apostle  of  humanism,  he  issued  his  dramas  as 
epistles  to  mankind.  His  message  was  the  moral  and  spiritual  in- 
terpretation of  the  utterance  of  Protagoras:  Man  is  the  measure  of 
all  things. ^°  The  keen  intellect  and  the  sensitive  conscience,  devel- 
oped by  a  mar\'ellous  civilization,  are  presented  with  all  the  artistic 
allurements  of  dramatic  genius  as  the  standards  whereby  to  judge 
truth  and  right  on  earth  and  in  heaven.  Casting  off  from  traditional 
moorings,  he  pilots  mankind  over  the  surging  seas  of  thought  and 
emotion;  he  bares  the  storm-tossed  heart;  but  his  ship  reaches  no 
haven,  he  finds  no  balm  for  the  wounds  he  has  opened. 

His  sympathy  with  the  less  fortunate  classes.  He  descends  to 
the  level  of  common  folk,  to  sympathize  with  beggars  and  cripples, 
with  women  and  slaves.  The  poet  of  the  submerged  majority  of 
human  kind  found  it  no  small  part  of  his  task  to  express  the  yearn- 
ings of  Athenian  women  for  a  larger  life  and  in  a  measure  to  create 
a  sentiment  in  favor  of  their  amelioration. 

Periclean  women.  The  spirit  of  the  Periclean  age  subordinated 
ever>'thing  to  the  glory  and  the  greatness  of  Athens.  As  women 
could  not  fight,  and  lacked  the  right  to  vote,  that  spirit  tended  to 
restrict  them  to  the  narrow  but  invaluable  function  in  which  the  state 
was  interested  —  the  sphere  of  the  mother  of  citizens  and  soldiers. 
The  statute  of  151  enhanced  the  value  of  Athenian  women;  the  aim 
was  an  exclusive  body  of  citizens  based  upon  racial  purity.^^  While 
the  value  of  woman  within  the  house  was  accordingly  accentuated,  her 
influence  outside  was  depreciated  and  repressed.  The  chief  object 
of  her  isolation,  limited  mainly  to  the  wealthier  class,  was  to  keep  her 
pure  from  contact  with  a  brutal  world.  With  the  growing  refine- 
ment of  the  age  men  became  conscious  of  their  own  sinfulness,  of  the 
immoral  propensities  of  their  social  nature,  of  the  consequent  tempta- 
tions to  which  their  sisters  and  daughters  wouuld  be  exposed,  should 
they  be  suffered  to  participate  unrestrained  in  the  society  of  men. 
With  almost  fanatical  zeal,  therefore,  the  higher  social  class,  distrust- 
ing the  strength  of  woman's  character,  segregated  the  sexes,  to  shield 
her  from  brutality  and  corruption. 

Restrictions  on  woman's  freedom.  Women  could  walk  abroad 
in  the  city,  but  only  when  attended  by  their  female  slaves.  They 
were  free  to  call  upon  one  another,  to  join  in  their  own  religious  holi- 

10  p.  278  f. 
up.  292. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  333 

days  and  under  due  rejj;ulations  to  participate  in  the  great  festi- 
vals of  the  city.  Hiey  could  not  decorously  sit  at  table  even  in  their 
own  house  when  guests,  outside  their  near  kinsmen,  were  present; 
only  at  funeral  feasts  did  they  occasionally  meet  the  intimate  friend? 
of  father  or  husband.  We  should  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that,  be- 
yond the  circle  of  near  kin,  men  were  as  completely  debarred  from 
the  society  of  respectable  women,  as  they  from  social  intercourse  wi.h 
men.  The  lives  of  women,  however,  were  relatively  cramped.  An 
ideal  of  resignation,  of  narrow  though  noble  duty,  was  formulated  for 
them  by  Pericles  in  an  official  utterance:  "  Great  will  be  your  glory, 
if  you  do  not  lower  the  nature  within  you  —  hers  most  of  all  whose 
praise  or  blame  is  least  bruited  on  the  lips  of  men."  ^^ 

Self-sacrificing  women.  The  majority  of  women  were  ready  to 
meet  the  demand  upon  them  by  resignation  and  self-sacrifice.  This 
spirit  finds  expression  in  the  Alcestis  of  Euripides,  presented  in  438. 
The  heroine  goes  voluntarily  to  death  to  save  her  husband's  life, 
coward  and  weakling  as  he  was.  The  poet  holds  her  up  as  a  model 
matron,  and  after  death  a  kindly  saint: 

"  Let  Hades  know,  that  swarthy  god,  and  that  old  man  who  sits  to  row 
and  steer  alike  at  his  death-ferry  that  he  hath  carried  o'er  the  lake  of 
Acheron  a  woman  peerless  amid  her  sex.  Oft  to  thee  the  Muses'  votaries 
shall  sing  on  the  seven-stringed  mountain  shell  and  in  hymns  that  need  no 
harp,  glorifying  thee  oft  as  the  season  in  his  cycle  cometh  round  at  Sparta, 
in  that  Carnean  month  when  all  night  long  the  moon  sails  overhead,  yea  and 
in  radiant  Athens,  haj^py  town.  So  glorious  a  theme  hath  thy  death  be- 
queathed to  tuneful  bards. ^3  We  loved  her  while  she  was  with  us,  we  love 
her  still  though  dead.  .  .  .  Her  tomb  let  none  regard  as  the  graves  of  those 
who  die  and  are  no  more;  but  let  her  have  honors  equal  with  the  Gods, 
revered  by  every  traveller;  and  many  a  one  will  cross  the  road  and  read  this 
verse  aloud:  'This  is  she  that  died  in  days  gone  by  to  save  her  lord;  now 
is  she  a  spirit  blest.  Hail,  lady  revered,  be  kind  to  us.'  Such  glad  greet- 
ing shall  she  have."  ^* 

This  absolute  devotion  to  duty,  this  complete  readiness  for  self- 
effacement,  met  with  wide  appreciation  among  the  Hellenes.  Iphi- 
geneia  of  Aulis  is  equally  ready  to  sacrifice  her  life  that  Hellas  may 
win  the  victory  over  foreigners;  man  she  esteems  of  more  value  to 
her  country  than  ten  thousand  women.^^ 

Women   of  rebellious   spirit.     Naturally  all  was  not  humility 

12  Funeral  Oration,  in  Thuc.   ii.   45.   2. 
isEurip.  Alcesiis,  439  ff.   (H.  Civ.  no.  96). 

14  Eurip.  Alcest.  991  ff. 

15  Eurip.   Iphigeueia  at  Aulis,   1368  ff.,   1394. 


334  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

within  the  ranks  of  Athenian  women.  Many  chafed  under  the  re- 
striction that  cut  them  off  from  the  larger  life  of  the  City;  a  few 
perhaps  were  ready  for  rebellion.  All  the  spirit  of  discontent  with 
their  narrow  life,  their  hated  environment,  the  poet  concentrates  and 
intensifies  in  his  Medea,  whom  he  presented  to  the  public  in  431. 
This  fiery  spirit,  hurling  defiance  at  her  oppressors,  foretells  the  time 
when  militant  feminism  shall  stand  triumphant,  her  foot  on  the  neck 
of  prostrate  man,  her  genius  attuning  all  song  and  story  to  the  new 
conditions. 

Back  turns  the  wave  on  the  ever  running  river; 

Life,  life  is  changed  and  the  laws  of  it  o'ertrod, 
Man  shall  be  the  slave,  the  affrighted,  the  low-liver! 

Man  hath  forgotten  God. 

And  woman,  yea  woman,  shall  be  terrible  in  story: 
The  tales,  too,  meseemeth,  shall  be  other  than  of  yore. 

For  a  fear  there  is  that  cometh  out  of  woman  and  a  glory 
And  the  hard  hating  voices  shall  encompass  her  no  more. 

The  old  bards  shall  cease  and  their  memory  that  lingers 

Of  frail  brides  and  faithless,  shall  be  shriveled  as  with  fire. 

For  they  loved  us  not,  nor  knew  us,  and  our  lips  were  dumb,  our  fingers 
Could  wake  not  the  secret  of  the  lyre. 

Else,  else  O  God  the  singer,  I  had  sung  amid  the  rages 

A  long  story  of  man  and  his  deeds  for  good  and  ill. 
But  the  world  knoweth  —  'tis  the  speech  of  all  his  ages  — 

Man's  wrong  and  ours;  he  knoweth  and  is  still. 

Capabilities.  In  an  intellectual  movement  for  her  emancipation, 
beginning  with  Euripides  and  culminating  in  the  Republic  of  Plato, 
the  first  thing  noticeable  was  her  great  capabilities  even  though  for 
mischief,  for  evil :  — 

There  is  no  scourge  dread  as  woman  is; 
No  painting  could  portray  her  hideousness 
Nor  speech  declare.     If  this  thing  by  some  God 
Was  moulded,  greatest  fashioner  of  ills 
And  most  malevolent  to  man  was  he.^^ 

This  power  for  evil,  however,  she  exercises  against  the  men  who 
wrong  her  or  her  kinsfolk,  "  grim  to  her  foes  and  kindly  to  her 
friends."  In  her  the  place  of  reckless  valor  has  been  usurped  by 
prudence:     "  Full  oft  even  from  woman's  lips  issue  words  of  wis- 

16  Eurip.  Frag.   1059  (Nauck),  the  sentiment  probably  of  someone  who  overestimated  the 
strength  of  an  intended  victim. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  335 

dom."     Some,  too,  are  capable  of  higher  culture,  as  many  undoubt- 
edly as  among  men :  — 

Full  oft  ere  this  my  soul  hath  scaled 

Lone  heights  of  thought,  empyreal  steeps, 
Or  plunged  far  down  the  darkling  deeps, 

Where  woman's  feebler  heart  hath  failed. 

Yet  wherefore  failed?     Should  woman  find 

No  inspiration  fill  her  breast, 

Nor  welcome  ever  that  sweet  guest 
Of  song,  that  uttereth  Wisdom's  mind? 

Alas,  not  all !  few,  few  are  they  — 
Perchance  amid  a  thousand  one 
Thou  shouldst  find, —  for  whom  the  sun 

Of  poesy  makes  an  inner  day.^' 

Among  a  few  intellectuals  the  idea  was  cherished  that  women,  if 
admitted  to  public  counsels,  might  benefit  the  state  by  their  frugal 
management,  their  caution,  and  their  love  of  peace.  The  idea  finds 
its  first  literary  expression  in  the  Lysistrate,  which  Aristophanes,  in 
mingled  jest  and  earnest,  placed  on  the  stage  in  411.  Lysistrate,  a 
clever,  young  Athenian  matron,  organizes  the  women  of  Athens, 
Boeotia,  and  Peloponnese  in  a  scheme  for  forcing  the  men  to  peace. 
Naturally  she  has  to  use  much  argument  with  her  lady  friends :  — 

Calonice.     What  can  we  women  do?     What  brilliant  scheme 
Can  we  pcor  souls  accomplish  who  sit 
Trimmed  and  bedizened  in  our  saffron  silks, 
Our  cambric  robes,  and  little  finical  shoes? 

Lysistrate.     Why,  they're  the  very  things  I  hope  will  save  us, 
Your  saffron  dresses,  and  your  finical  shoes. 
Your  paints  and  perfumes,  and  your  robes  of  gauze. 

Cal.     How  mean  you,  save  us? 

Lys.     So  that  nevermore 
Men  in  our  day  shall  lift  the  hostile  spear. ^^ 

Deserting  their  homes  and  husbands,  accordingly,  they  seize  the 
Acropolis,  and  refuse  to  return  to  their  matronly  duties  until  peace  is 
firmly  established.  It  is  not  merely  for  securing  a  treaty  that  the 
women  come  forward  in  this  play,  but  for  expressing  the  poet's  best 
sentiments  of  brotherly  love  among  the  Hellenes,  which  should  create 

IT  Chorus  of  Corinthian  women,  Eurip.  Medea,  1081-89.  Not  so  great  a  proportion  of 
men  composed  music  and  literature. 

18  H.  Civ.  no.  100  (Aristoph.  Lysistrate,  42  ff.).  The  shoes  here  mentioned  were  a  kind 
of  slipper  which  the  Athenian  women  considered  attractive. 


CYBELE 
(Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art) 


ATHENA  NIKE  TEMPLE 


55  Ajax  758  ff. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  337 

an  everlasting  peace,  and  of  a  wise  liberality  in  admittinfj  the  allies 
to  Athenian  citizenship.  Such  intellectual  agitation  for  the  rights 
of  women  was  carried  farther  in  the  following  centur}%  but  wholly 
failed  to  become  political.^" 

Religion :  alien  cults.  The  spirit  that  strove  to  enlarge  the  liberty 
of  women  wrought  more  powerfully  to  break  the  supremacy  of  tra- 
ditional faith.  To  the  native  gods  were  added  the  strange  deities  y 
brought  in  by  the  swarms  of  foreign  traders,  metics,  and  slaves.  Be- 
side the  official  mysteries  of  Eleusis  were  introduced  the  more  exciting 
mysteries  from  barbaric  Samothrace.  From  Phrygia  came  Cybele, 
the  Great  Mother,  to  take  up  her  abode  in  Athens  as  well  as  in  many 
other  towns.  The  Metroon,  her  shrine  near  the  Council  Hall,  held 
the  public  archives.  In  her  worship  processions,  with  beating  drums 
and  clashing  cymbals,  moved  noisily  through  the  streets.  Likewise 
from  Cyprus  came  the  divine  youth,  Aphrodite's  companion  Adonis, 
whose  untimely  death  sympathetic  women  lamented  with  piercing 
wails  in  yearly  festival.^"  Many  in  brief  were  the  newcoming  gods 
from  Thrace,  Phrygia,  or  the  Orient,  with  their  strange  priests  and 
curious  rites,  emotional  and  noisy,  or  secret  and  mystical.  All  alike 
were  individualistic  in  contrast  with  the  recognized  civic  cults. 
Scorned  by  the  educated  and  the  conservative,  such  innovations  tended 
to  loosen  the  hold  of  the  community  on  its  hereditary  gods. 

Rationalism:  Euripides*  treatment  of  myths.  A  far  more 
active  dissolvent  was  rationalism.  While  treating  with  notable  for- 
bearance the  myths  that  formed  not  only  the  tragic  poet's  stock  in  • 
trade  but  the  background  of  his  countrj^'s  history,  Euripides  gives  us 
to  understand  that  many  supernatural  powers,  traditionally  assumed, 
have  no  real  existence.  The  Furies  that  goad  Orestes  are  but  the 
creations  of  an  excited  mind.-^  Homer  had  made  the  gods  responsi- 
ble for  the  good  and  evil  acts  of  men;  Euripides  rejects  the  whole 
theory.  That  Helen  followed  Paris  to  Troy  no  goddess  should  be 
blamed :  — 

All  folly  is  to  men  their  Aphrodite; 
Sensual,  senseless,  consonant  they  ring! 
Him  in  barbaric  bravery  sawest  thou 
Gold-glittering,  and  thy  senses  were  distraught.22 

19  H.  Civ.  no.   100  (Aristoph.   Lysist.)\   p.   408  below. 

20  The  Metroon  contained  an  image  of  the  Great  Mother  by  Pheidias;  Paus.  i.  3.  5.    In 
legend  Adonis  while  hunting  was  killed  by  a  wild  boar. 

21  Eurip.  Orestes,  255-9. 

22  Eurip.  Daughters  of  Troy,  985-92. 


338  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

This  rationalism  reduces  the  deity  to  a  force  or  passion;  but  while 
undennining  traditional  religion,  it  marks  a  moral  advance  in  laying 
the  responsibility  for  conduct  upon  the  individual.  As  a  class  the 
sophists  were  sceptical;  but  they  were  few,  and  the  number  of  men 
who  were  willing  and  able  to  pay  them  the  required  fee  formed  but  a 
small  fraction  of  the  community.  The  drama,  however,  took  up 
these  advanced  ideas  and  spread  them  broadcast  over  the  audience. 
In  this  way  they  attained  a  degree  of  popularity. 

Atheism:  Critias.  A  poet  who  dared  openly  to  preach  atheism 
would  have  been  prosecuted  without  delay.  Yet  we  find  the  doc- 
trine loudly  proclaimed  in  a  drama  of  Critias,  composed  perhaps  for 
home  reading  rather  than  for  presentation  on  the  stage.  Here  is 
offered  the  theory  that  the  gods  are  the  invention  of  clever  men  to 
serve  a  useful  purpose  in  society :  — 

A  time  once  existed  when  unordered  was  the  Hfe  of  men  and  kindred  to 
the  beasts  —  a  life  enslaved  to  brute  force,  when  no  regard  was  offered  to 
the  good,  nor  for  the  bad  was  wrought  chastisement.  Then,  methinks,  did 
men  establish  laws  as  means  of  punishment,  that  Justice  might  be  autocrat 
.  .  .  and  have  Insolence  for  slave ;  and  penalty  was  meted  out  to  any 
who  transgressed.  When  the  laws  restrained  them  openly  from  doing  deeds 
of  force,  but  secretly  they  did  them,  then,  methinks,  some  man  adroit  and 
wise  conceived  the  notion  to  devise  gods  for  mankind,  that  there  might  be 
awe  for  the  bad,  even  if  secretly  they  should  perform  or  say  or  think  (some 
evil).  Thence  did  he  introduce  divinity:  that  there  is  a  Supernal  Being 
floiu"ishing  with  life  imperishable  and  mind,  hearing  and  seeing  and  think- 
ing, and  attending  to  these  things  and  bearing  divine  nature,  who  will  hear 
all  that  is  spoken  among  mortals  and  will  perceive  all  that  is  enacted.  Even 
if  in  silence  thou  some  evil  plannest,  this  will  not  escape  the  gods.  -^ 

The  doubts  of  various  intellectuals.  Euripides,  however,  while 
avoiding  this  bold  stand,  makes  his  characters  the  spokesmen  of 
various  doubts.  The  great  comic  poet  Aristophanes,  reputed  ortho- 
dox, was  freer  to  hold  up  the  gods  as  a  laughing-stock;  and  while 
professing  to  resist  modem  ideas  was  instrumental  in  spreading  them. 
In  the  Knights  Demosthenes  doubts  the  existence  of  the  gods,  whereas 
Nicias  believes  in  them  because  he  is  "  such  a  god-detested  wretch."  -* 
In  a  lost  play  of  Euripides  the  hero  exclaims:  "  If  deeds  of  shame 
gods  do,  no  gods  are  they."  -^  A  more  startling  doubt  springs  from 
the  lips  of  Talthybius:  "  Great  Zeus!  what  can  I  say?  that  thine  eye 
is  over  man  ?  or  that  we  hold  this  false  opinion  to  no  purpose,  think- 

23  H.  Civ.  no.   113  (Critias,  Sisyphtis,  Nauck,  Frag.  p.  771  f.). 

24  Aristoph.   Knights,  32-4. 

25  Belltrophon,  Nauck,  no.  292. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  339 

iug  there  is  any  race  of  Gods,  when  it  is  chance  that  rules  this  mortal 
sphere?  " -"^  While  Thucydides,  the  historian,  takes  pains  to  prove 
the  oracles  true,-'  all  omens,  prophecies,  and  soothsa}'ers  suffer  at 
the  hands  of  the  two  poets.  "  As  for  birds  that  fly  above  our  heads, 
a  lon<};  farewell  to  them,"  -®  whilst  "  the  whole  seer-tribe  is  one 
ambitious  curse,  abominal)le  and  useless."  ^^  The  burlesquing  of 
oracles  by  Aristophanes  must  have  had  a  disquieting  effect  on  the 
audience:  — 

Heed  thou,  well  Erechtheides,  the  kidnapping  Cerberus,  ban-dog; 
Wagging  his  tail  he  stands,  and  fawning  upon  thee  at  dinner, 
Waiting  thy  slice  to  devour  when  aught  distract  thy  attention. 
Soon  as  the  night  comes  round  he  steals  unseen  to  the  kitchen 
Dog-wise;  then  will  his  tongue  clean  out  the  plates  and  —  the  islands. ^o 

Reasons  for  such  parodies  and  criticisms.  This  oracle  is  ad- 
dressed to  the  Athenians  (Erechtheides)  warning  them  against  the 
fawning,  pilfering  dog  Cleon.  Such  parodies  were  inspired  by  the 
excessive  pretensions  of  oracle-mongers,  while  scepticism  as  to  the 
gods  was  largely  due  to  an  advancing  moral  sense  and  to  a  growing 
individualism  which  emboldened  the  Greeks  to  demand  of  the  powers 
above  the  moral  standard  which  men  had  set  up  for  themselves. 
Especially  reprehensible  are  the  lawless  unions  of  Zeus  and  Apollo 
with  mortal  women  —  once  an  honor  to  the  family  thus  visited  but 
now  a  disgrace  to  the  gods:  - 

O  Phoebus,  do  not  so ;  but  as  thou  art  supreme,  follow  in  virtue's  track. 
For  whosoever  of  mortal  men  transgresses,  him  the  Gods  punish.  How  then 
can  it  be  just  that  ye  should  enact  your  laws  for  men,  and  yourselves  incur 
the  charge  of  breaking  them?  Now,  I  will  put  this  case,  though  it  will  never 
happen.  Wert  thou,  were  Poseidon  and  Zeus,  lord  of  Heaven,  to  make 
atonement  to  mankind  for  every  act  of  lawless  love,  ye  would  empty  your 
temples  in  paying  the  fines  for  your  misdeeds.  For  when  ye  pursue  pleasure 
in  preference  to  the  claims  of  prudence,  ye  act  unjustly.  No  longer  is  it 
fair  to  call  men  wicked,  if  they  imitate  the  evil  deeds  of  the  Gods,  but 
rather  those  who  gave  us  such  examples. ^^ 

Failure  of  the  gods  to  uphold  the  moral  order.  In  many  re- 
spects the  gods  seem  to  fail  in  their  function  of  upholding  justice. 
For  such  shortcomings  some  mortals  are  inclined  to  curse  them,  as- 
signing a  selfish  motive  to  their  confusion  of  moral  order:  — 

26  Eurip.  Hecuba,  488-91. 

27  Cf.   i.   126;  ii.   17. 

28  Eurip.   Hippolytus,   1058  f. 

29  Eurip.   Ipliigenca  at  Aulis,  520  f. 

.30  Aristoph.   Knights,  1030-34;   cf.   196  ff . ;  Peace,  1045  ff. 
31  Eurip.    loti,   436-51 ;    cf.    1520   ff. 


340  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Naught  is  there  man  may  trust,  nor  high  repute, 

Nor  present  weal  —  for  it  may  turn  to  woe. 

All  things  the  Gods  confound,  hurl  this  way  and  that, 

Turmoiling  all,  that  we,  foreknowing  naught, 

May  worship  them :  what  skills  it  to  make  moan 

For  this,  outrunning  evils  none  the  more?  ^~ 

Their  ways  are  past  finding  out.  Others  in  more  submissive 
spirit  merely  remark  upon  the  inscrutability  of  God :  — 

O  the  words  of  the  Gods  —  in  manifold  wise  they  reveal  them ; 
Maniford  things  unhoped-for  the  Gods  to  accomplishment  bring. 
And  the  things  that  we  looked  for,  the  Gods  deign  not  to  fulfil  them; 
And  the  paths  undiscerned  of  our  eyes,  the  Gods  unseal  them. 
So  fell  this  marvellous  thing. ^^ 

A  refuge  of  the  believer  is  in  predestination;  an  apparent  wrong  is 
explained  by  the  will  of  Zeus,  working  from  of  old  for  some  purpose 
unknown  to  man.^*  It  is  a  bolder  idea,  perhaps  a  suggestion  from 
the  realm  of  magic,  that  man  may  compel  the  God,  against  his 
selfish  interest,  to  do  the  right. ^^ 

Future  life.  There  is  the  same  attitude  of  doubt  toward  future 
life.  "  Man's  whole  existence  is  full  of  anguish;  no  respite  from  his 
woes  he  finds;  but  if  there  is  aught  to  love  beyond  this  life,  night's 
dark  pall  doth  wrap  it  round."  ^"  Death  is  annihilation:  the  body 
returns  to  earth,  the  breath  to  air;  it  is  better  so  for  we  shall  be  free 
from  trouble.^'  Yet  after  all,  this  life  may  be  mere  death  compared 
with  a  glorious  existence  beyond  the  grave :  — 

Who  knows  if  life  is  not  a  death. 

And  death  is  held  below  to  be  our  life.''  ^^ 

In  brief  all  the  unanswered  questions  of  right  and  wrong,  of  religion 
and  future  life,  that  vex  modern  thought,  turmoiled  the  mind  of 
Euripides  and  his  contemporaries. 

Sophistic  degenerates.  Meanwhile  sophists  without  character  or 
earnest  purpose,  pushing  to  ridiculous  extremes  the  doctrine  of  Prota- 
goras, were  asserting  that  everything  is  precisely  as  it  appears  to 

32  Eurip.  Hcc.  955-61;   cf.  Hippol.   1415. 

33  Eurip.  Bacchae,  1388-92;  cf.  Medea,  1415-19. 

34  Bacch.   1344-9. 

35  Ion,  365  ff. 

36  Eurip.   Hippol.    189  ff. 

37  Daughters  of  Troy,  632  f. ;  Heracleidae,  593  f. 

38  Eurip.  Nauck,  no.  638. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  341 

every  individual.  No  affirmation  can  be  false  because  it  is  impos- 
sible to  state  that  which  docs  not  exist.  If  a  thing  is  true,  the  op- 
posite is  equally  true.  Thus  arose  a  class  of  disputants  whose  sole 
purpose  was  to  confute  their  adversaries  by  quibbling  with  words, 
by  fallacies  of  logic,  and  by  sheer  effrontery  of  manner."*^  The  effect 
was  to  fill  the  right-minded  with  disgust  of  sophistry. 

Religion  and  philosophic  recovery.  It  is  not  surprising  there- 
fore that  as  an  escape  from  the  hopeless  hul:)bub  of  scepticism  a  reac- 
tion should  .arise  toward  religious  and  philosophic  faith.  Here  and 
there  through  all  the  plays  of  Euripides  may  be  found  expressions  of 
faith;  and  in  his  Bacchae,  composed  shortly  before  his  death,  the  aged 
poet,  totally  renouncing  radicalism,  seeks  comfort  in  the  ancestral  be- 
liefs :  — 

'Tis  not  for  us  to  reason  touching  Gods. 
Traditions  of  our  fathers,  old  as  time, 
We  hold:  no  reasoning  shall  cast  them  down, — 
No,  though  of  subtlest  wisdom  sprung.  *o 

The  heaven  he  has  learned  to  adore,  however,  is  not  the  Homeric 
council  of  gods  but  a  moral  and  spiritual  Power  to  whose  guidance 
a  man  may  wisely  subject  his  soul :  — 

Thus  shall  a  mortal  have  sorrowless  days,  if  he  keepeth  his  soul 
Sober  in  spirit,  and  swift  in  obedience  to  Heaven's  control. 
Murmuring  not,  neither  pressing  beyond  his  mortality's  goal.*! 

Socrates,  about  469-399.  A  contemporary  of  Euripides,  and  a 
kindred  spirit,  was  Socrates  the  philosopher.  He  was  relatively 
poor;  his  estate  barely  enabled  him  to  serve  in  the  heavy  infantry; 
and  in  youth  he  had  trained  as  a  sculptor  in  his  father's  shop.  Little 
schooling  fell  to  his  lot;  and  his  moderate  acquaintance  with  existing 
philosophers  was  but  incidentally  gained.  From  early  life,  how- 
ever, he  neglected  his  worldly  affairs  to  devote  himself  to  thought. 
He  had  the  habit  of  standing  for  hours  together,  even  for  an  entire 
night,  staring  at  vacancy,  totally  absorbed  in  reasoning  out  a  problem 
that  chanced  to  interest  him.  Forsaking  a  trade  which  under  the 
circumstances  could  have  afforded  him  but  a  meager  sustenance,  he 

3!)  Plato,  Euthydcmus;  Aristotle,   To  pica  (Logical  Fallacies). 

40  200-203. 

41  Eurip.  Bacch.   1002. 


342  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

devoted  his  entire  life  to  the  pursuit  of  truth.  In  this  vocation  he 
was  encouraged  by  an  oracle  of  Apollo  which  declared  him  to  be 
the  wisest  of  men.*- 

His  religion.  Through  his  whole  life  Socrates  accepted  and  faith- 
fully practised  the  religion  of  the  State,  and  was  often  seen  sacriiicing 
at  the  public  altars.*^  His  ideas  of  the  gods,  however,  were  en- 
lightened. Whereas  the  many  still  believed  that  their  knowledge  was 
limited,  Socrates  held  that  they  were  present  everywhere  and  knew 
all  things.**  It  was  equally  his  conviction  that  they  communicated 
with  men  through  omens  and  oracles.  A  divinity,  accompanying  him 
through  life,  gave  him  warnings  which  he  always  heeded.*^ 

The  argument  of  design.  His  belief  in  the  greatness  and  the 
wisdom  of  God  was  strengthened  by  the  argument  of  design.  The 
world  is  made  for  man,  and  every  part  of  a  human  being  is  admir- 
ably adapted  to  a  good  purpose.  Existing  things  must  therefore  be 
the  handiwork  of  a  wise  artificer,  full  of  love  for  all  things  living. 
As  man  is  superior  to  animals,  the  Deity  has  taken  especial  thought 
for  him.  He  is  pleased  with  those  things  in  us  which  conduce  most 
to  our  well-being.  Socrates  drew,  too,  from  experience  that  the  wisest 
and  most  enduring  of  human  institutions  are  the  most  God-fearing, 
and  that  in  the  individual  man  the  riper  his  age  and  judgment,  the 
deeper  his  religion.*''  It  was  necessary  for  Socrates  to  make  his  sac- 
rifices correspond  with  his  small  means,  but  he  believed  that  the  joy 
of  the  Gods  is  great  in  proportion  to  the  holiness  of  the  worshipper; 
and  in  the  conviction  that  they  well  knew  his  own  interest,  he  used  to 
pray  simply,  "  Give  me  what  is  best  for  me."  *^ 

The  charm  of  his  personality;  his  preference  for  ethics.  He 
was  not  the  mere  prosaic  teacher  of  Xenophon's  recollections;  but  in 
addition  to  an  ample  fund  of  common  sense  he  had  within  him  humor, 
imagination,  intellectual  power,  and  a  love  of  truth  so  burning  as  to 
become    at   times   ecstatic.     With    such    qualities   he    fascinated    his 

42  Sources;  Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  supplemented  and  modified  by  Plato's  writings, 
especially  the  Apology,  Symposium,  and  Protagoras.  See  also  Diog.  Laert.  ii.  5.  Carica- 
ture in  Aristoph.  Clouds.  Straitened  circumstances;  Plato,  A  pal.  38  a;  Republic,  i.  337 
d.  Relations  with  older  thinkers;  Plato,  Protagoras ;  Gorgias ;  Hippias.  Long  trances; 
Plat.  Symp.  220.     The  oracle;  Plat.  Apol.  20  e;  23  a;  33  c. 

43  Xen.   Mem.   i.   1.  2;  3.    1. 

nop.  cit.  i.  1.  19;  4.  17  f.  The  constant  interchange  of  "the  gods"  and  "god"  seems 
to  indicate  a  belief  in  one  supreme  being  with  a  plurality  of  subordinate  powers  of  heaven; 
cf.  the  Christian  God  and  the  angels. 

45  Omens;  op.  cit.  i.  1.  3  f . ;  3.  4.  The  divine  voice;  i.  1.  5.  Xenophon  represents  the 
voice  as  both  commanding  and  prohibiting,  whereas  Plato  (e.  g.  Apol.  31  d. ;  Phaedr.  242 
b-c;   Theaetrtus,  151   a)  speaks  of  it  more  accurately  as  merely  prohibitive. 

46  Xen.   Mem.   i.   4;   iv.  3. 

47  Op.  cit.  i.  1.  3  f. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  343 

young  companions,*^  and  some  of  them,  especially  Plato,  he  awakened 
to  a  life  of  intense  mental  productivity.  With  Socrates  true  knowl- 
edge was  not  simply  the  source  but  the  substance  of  virtue;  and  he 
preferably  sought  that  kind  of  truth  which  should  determine  the 
conduct  of  men  —  for  example,  "  what  is  piety  and  what  impiety? 
what  is  the  beautiful  and  what  the  ugly?  what  is  the  noble  and  what 
the  base?  what  are  meant  by  iust  and  uniust?  what  by  sobriety  and 
madness?  what  by  courage  and  cowardice?  what  is  a  State  and  what 
a  statesman?  what  is  a  ruler  over  men  and  what  a  ruling  character? 
and  other  similar  problems."  *^ 

The  Socratic  method.  His  method  of  research  was  through  con- 
versation with  his  fellows.  Wherever  the  crowds  were  thickest,  there 
he  could  be  found  engaged  in  argument  on  his  favorite  subjects.  It 
was  easy  for  him  to  prove  his  opponent  ignorant  of  the  topic  under 
discussion,  as  he  was  the  most  formidable  reasoner  of  his  age.  Hav- 
ing thus  cleared  the  ground,  he  proceeded  by  induction  to  establish 
precise  definitions  of  general  terms. ^°  "  There  are  two  things  that 
one  would  rightly  attribute  to  Socrates:  inductive  reasoning  and  uni- 
versal definition.  In  fact  these  two  things  are  the  very  foundation  of 
knowledge."  '''^  It  was  thus  that,  while  professing  ignorance  on  all 
subjects,  he  built  up  a  body  of  ethical  science  which  might  serve  as  a 
guide  to  himself  and  to  others.  In  assuming  man  to  be  the  measure 
of  all  things,  he  stood  on  sophistic  ground;  but  he  made  a  vast  ad- 
vance in  pointing  to  the  reason,  rather  than  the  senses,  as  the  universal 
and  eternal  element  in  man,  the  infallible  criterion  of  truth,  therefore, 
in  the  realm  of  conduct  or  of  nature.  As  intellectual  education,  how- 
ever, merely  increased  a  man's  power  for  evil,  he  was  careful  first  of 
all  to  instruct  his  associates  in  self-control  and  to  inspire  them  with  a 
wise  spirit  in  their  relations  with  the  Gods.  Wisdom  and  Justice  we 
should  seek  not  only  because  of  their  use  to  us  but  also  because  they 
are  pleasing  to  the  Gods.  The  facts  here  cited  prove  his  teachings 
to  have  been  quite  as  religious  as  philosophic.'^- 

A  model  life.  Throughout  his  life  he  gave  evidence  of  loyalty 
and  love  for  his  fellow-citizens  and  his  country. ^^  Living  with  rare 
frugality  on  a  small  estate,  he  charged  no  fee  for  instruction  but  lav- 

48  Cf.   Plat.   Syvip.  215  e. 

49  Xen.    Mem.   i.    1.    16. 

50  Xen.   Mem.  i.   1.   10;  cf.   iv.  2. 

.'51  Aristotle,  Mdapliysirs,  xii.  4,  1078  b. 

52  Cf.  Xen.  Mem.  iv.  3.   1. 

53  Xen.  Mem.  iv.  4. 


344  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ished  the  wealth  of  his  spirit  on  rich  and  poor  alike.^*  Many  were 
his  exhortations  to  brothers  to  love  one  another,  to  children  to  respect 
and  obey  their  parents,  and  to  citizens  to  be  true  to  their  country.^^ 
Faithfully  he  performed  his  military  duties,  and  as  chairman  of  the 
assembly  he  fearlessly  adhered  to  law  against  popular  clamor  for 
injustice.^**  It  is  true  that  he  criticised  the  use  of  the  lot  for  the 
appointment  of  officials  on  the  ground  that  it  brought  incompetent 
men  into  public  service,^'  but  with  the  general  principles  of  democ- 
racy he  wa.s  in  full  sympathy.  Rather  than  give  his  time  to  the  hold- 
ing of  offices,  he  chose  as  a  higher  duty  the  task  of  preparing  men  to 
serve  the  State  in  war  and  peace  with  strong  bodies,  clear  brains,  and 
upright  hearts.'"^* 

History.  Thucydides.  The  desire  for  serviceable  knowledge, 
the  interest  in  mankind,  the  absorption  in  the  present,  which  charac- 
terized the  intellectual  movement  set  forth  in  this  chapter,  found 
notable  expression  in  history.  Thucydides  was  related  to  Miltiades. 
Like  his  kinsman  Cimon,  he  had  Thracian  blood  in  his  veins,  which 
may  help  explain  his  virile  spirit.  He  resembled  the  men  of  the 
Periclean  age,  not  only  in  intensity  and  power  of  thought  and  style, 
but  also  in  the  fact  that  he  was  a  man  of  action,  as  well  as  of  words, 
a  general  in  the  war,  who  could  therefore  season  his  writings  with 
practical  experienced^  A  mistake,  or  failure,  as  commander  of  an 
Athenian  sciuadron  in  the  north  Aegean  led  to  his  exile  in  424.''''  At 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  foreseeing  that  it  would  be  memorable,  he 
had  begun  to  collect  material  for  a  history  of  it ;  and  during  the  twenty 
years  of  his  exile  he  travelled  about,  visiting  the  scenes  of  military 
operations  and  ascertaining  facts  from  eye-witnesses."^  Doubtless 
he  kept  a  record  of  events,  which  he  corrected  and  expanded  with  the 
accjuisition  of  new  and  more  precise  information.  At  the  close  of  the 
war  he  undertook  a  final  recomposition  of  his  work  from  the  begin- 
ning. It  comes  to  an  end  in  the  course  of  411,  doubtless  cut  short  by 
his  death;  and  the  fifth  and  eighth  books  lack  his  finishing  touches."^ 

54  op.  cit.  i.  2.  7,  60  f. 

55  Op.  cit.  ii.  2-4,  6,  10. 

50  Op.  cit.  i.  1.   18;  iv.  4.  2. 

57  Op.  cit.  i.  2.  9. 

r>SOp.  cit.   i.  2.  48;  6.   15;   cf.   i.  6.   9  and  bk,   iii  entire. 

5a  Vita  of  Thucydides  by  an  unknown  author  and  Marcellinus,  Vita  of  Thucydides,  both 
prefixed  to  his  works;  also  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  On  Thucydides  and  the  newly  dis- 
covered fragments  of  a  commentary  on  the  historian  in  O.v.   Pap.   vi.  no.  853. 

60  His   slowness    in    coming   to   the    protection    of    Amphipolis;    Thuc.    iv.    104-7. 

01  Thuc.    i.    I ;    v.    26. 

fi2  Some  work  of  revision  may  have  followed  the  Peace  of  Nicias,  421;  p.  311.  The 
peculiarities  of  bk.  viii  may  be  due  less  to- incompleteness  than  to  the  adoption  of  a  some- 
what different  method  of  treatment. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  345 

Desire  for  exact  knowledge.  A  characteristic  whicli  jKrlKii)s 
first  strikes  the  reader's  attention  is  the  desire  for  exact  knowledge,  X 
shared  by  him  with  Socrates  and  the  best  minds  of  the  age.  "  Of 
the  events  of  the  war  I  have  not  ventured  to  speak  from  any  informa- 
tion, nor  according  to  any  notion  of  my  own;  I  have  described  nothing 
but  what  I  either  saw  myself  or  learned  from  others  of  whom  I  made 
the  most  careful  and  particular  inquiry.  The  task  was  a  laborious 
one,  because  eye-witnesses  of  the  same  occurrences  gave  different 
accounts  of  them,  as  they  remembered  or  were  interested  in  the  actions 
of  one  side  or  the  other."  ^^  It  was  partly  this  consideration  which  led 
him  to  avoid  a  detailed  treatment  of  the  distant  past:  "  The  charac- 
ter of  the  events  which  preceded  (the  war),  whether  immediately  or  in 
more  remote  antiquity,  because  of  the  lapse  of  time  cannot  be  made 
out  with  certainty."  *^*  A  greater  motive,  however,  was  his  conviction 
that,  as  compared  with  the  present,  the  past  was  insignificant:  "  For- 
mer ages  were  not  great  either  in  their  wars  or  in  anything  else."  ^^ 

"  The  greatest  achievement  was  the  Persian  war;  yet  even  this 
struggle  was  speedily  decided  in  two  battles  by  sea,  and  two  by 
land."  "^^  The  most  important  event  in  history,  as  he  supposed,  was 
the  Peloponnesian  war.  In  this  connection  it  is  worthy  of  notice  in 
what,  according  to  his  judgment,  the  greatness  of  an  event  consisted. 

The  measure  of  greatness  of  a  war. 

"  The  Peloponnesian  War  was  a  protracted  struggle,  and  attended  by 
calamities  such  as  Hellas  had  never  known  within  a  like  period  of  time. 
Never  were  so  many  cities  captured  and  depopulated,  some  by  foreigners, 
others  by  Hellenes  themselves  fighting  against  one  another;  and  several  of 
them  after  their  capture  were  repeopled  by  strangers.  Never  were  exile  and 
slaughter  more  frequent,  whether  in  the  war  or  brought  about  by  civil 
strife.  .  .  .  There  were  earthquakes  unparalleled  in  their  extent  and  fury, 
and  eclipses  of  the  sun  more  numerous  than  are  recorded  to  have  happened 
in  any  former  age;  there  were  also  in  some  places  great  droughts  causing 
famines,  and  lastly  the  plague,  which  did  immense  harm  and  destroyed  many 
people."  ^"^ 

Contrast    between    Thucydides    and    the    modern    historian. 

From  this  passage  it  appears  that  his  criteria  of  the  importance  of 
events  differ  widely  from  those  of  our  times,  which  estimate  the 
significance   of   a   war   by   its   influence   on   the   course   of   history. 

63Thuc.  i.  22;  cf.  v.  26. 

64  I.   1 ;  cf.   i.   10.  20. 

65  Thuc.   i.   1,   in  agreement  with  the  sophists;   p.  340  f. 

66  I.  23. 

67  Thuc.  i.  23. 


346  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Closely  related  is  his  idea  of  cause,  which  is  as  widely  separated  from 
our  own.  In  his  first  book  he  sets  forth,  as  the  antecedents  of  the  war, 
the  events  leading  up  to  it  and  particularly  the  mutual  grievances 
of  the  parties  concerned.  There  is  no  thought  of  seeking  into  what 
we  should  term  underlying  causes  —  general  economic,  social,  and 
political  conditions  which  tended  to  bring  Athenians  and  Pelopon- 
nesians  into  conflict;  briefly,  such  inquiries  are  a  product  of  modern 
evolutionary  science. 

"  The  great  contrast,  in  fact,  between  axicient  and  modern  history  is  this : 
that  whereas  the  moderns  instinctively  and  incessantly  seek  for  the  operation 
of  social  conditions,  of  economic  and  topological  factors,  and  of  political 
forces  and  processes  of  evolution, —  all  of  which  elements  they  try  to  bring 
vmder  laws  as  general  and  abstract  as  possible;  the  ancients  looked  simply 
and  solely  to  the  feelings,  motives,  characters  of  individuals  or  of  cities. 
These,  and  (apart  from  supernatural  agencies)  these  only,  appeared  to  them 
to  shape  the  course  of  history."  *^8 

It  was  far  from  the  thought  of  the  Greeks  that  they  were  slaves 
of  heredity  and  environment.  With  Thucydides  the  forces  that  make 
history  are  the  statesmen,  who  consciously  operate  to  effect  a  given 
purpose,  secondarily  the  people  especially  in  assembly,  moved  by  ca- 
pricious feeling  to  a  wise  or  a  foolish  resolution.  The  ideal  republic 
therefore,  is  one  like  Athens  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  in  which  the  best 
and  wisest  citizen  is  able  to  control  the  rest. 

The  purpose  of  his  history.  To  the  modern  historian,  the  choice 
of  a  war  as  a  subject  for  treatment,  rather  than  a  period  or  a  phase  of 
historical  development,  might  be  set  down  as  evidence  of  a  narrow 
mind.  To  the  Hellenic  statesman,  however,  there  was  no  more  press- 
ing and  vital  interest  than  tlie  military  defence  of  his  country;  and 
the  paramount  object  of  Thucydides  was  a  work  that  would  prove 
serviceable  to  generals  and  statesmen.  "  If  he  who  desires  to  have 
before  his  eyes  a  picture  of  the  events  which  have  happened,  and  of 
the  like  events  which  may  be  expected  to  happen  hereafter  in  the  order 
of  human  things,  shall  pronounce  what  I  have  written  to  be  useful, 
then  I  shall  be  satisfied.  My  history  is  an  everlasting  possession, 
not  a  prize  composition  which  is  heard  and  forgotten."  ^^  In  his 
utilitarian  motive  he  agrees  with  the  sophists.     The  theory  that  his- 

68  Cornford,  Thucydides  Mythhistoricus,  66.  The  quoting  of  Cornford  does  not  imply 
an  acceptance  of  this  autlior's  depreciation  of  Thucydides;  cf.  Lamb.  W.  R.  M.,  Kho 
Enthroned,  representing  a  sounder  estimate.  The  advantage  is  not  all  with  the  mod- 
erns; cf.  H.  Civ.  p.  647. 

yg  Tliuc.  i.  22  4.  KriJ/xa  is  del  probably  means  no  more  than  a  work  of  reference,  to 
be  used  from  time  to  time. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  347 

tory  repeats  itself  is  not  affirmed  by  Thucydides  nor  is  it  held  by  the 
modems.  The  fact  is  recognized,  however,  that  to  the  experienced 
statesman  a  careful  and  extensive  knowledge  of  past  conditions  is 
most  helpful  in  maturing  his  practical  judgrnent. 

The  orations.  The  orations  which  occupy  a  large  part  of  the 
work,  are,  so  to  speak,  its  soul.  Usually  they  are  given  in  pairs, 
representing  the  opposing  views  of  a  situation  or  a  question  for  de- 
cision before  an  assembly.  "  As  to  the  speeches  which  were  made 
either  before  or  during  the  war,  it  is  hard  for  me,  and  for  others 
who  reported  them  to  me,  to  recollect  tlie  exact  words.  I  have 
therefore  put  into  the  mouth  of  each  speaker  the  sentiments  proper 
to  the  occasion,  expressed  as  I  thought  he  would  be  likely  to  express 
them,  while  at  the  same  time  I  endeavored,  as  nearly  as  I  could,  to 
give  the  general  purport  of  what  was  actually  said."  ""  The  lan- 
guage is  the  historian's;  the  ideas,  so  far  as  they  could  be  ascer- 
tained, are  the  orators',  though  even  here,  as  the  actual  speeches  were 
unwritten,  the  historian  exercised  large  discretion  in  including  what 
he  conrfdered  appropriate  to  the  occasion.  Generally  therefore  the 
speeches  embody  the  historian's  conception  of  the  situation  which 
they  present,  and  express  most  adequately  his  keen  analytical  intel- 
ligence. 

His  work  a  model.  Notwithstanding  certain  differences  between 
ancient  and  modern  conceptions  of  history,  we  may  still  look  to 
Thucydides  as  a  master  in  important  respects  unrivalled.  In  his 
own  personal  reserve,  in  the  determination  with  which  he  pursues  his 
single  aim,  rejecting  every  extraneous  matter,  in  the  relentless  analysis, 
which  lays  bare  the  souls  of  individuals,  of  factions,  of  communities, 
in  the  fairness  and  mental  placidity  with  which  he  treats  of  personal 
enemies  and  opposing  parties,  in  intellectual  depth,  keenness  and 
grasp,  we  may  safely  say  that  he  has  thus  far  no  equal. 

Art:  statuary.  In  art.  too,  we  discover  a  development  in  mod- 
ern directions.  Polycleitus,  a  younger  contemporary  of  Pheidias, 
began  his  activity  as  a  sculptor  with  the  dawn  of  the  Periclean  age  and 
continued  to  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  war.  In  the  fact  that  his 
athletes  are  a  direct  development  from  the  pre-Persian  "  Apollos," 
he  seems  more  conservative  even  than  Myron;  but  we  place  him  in 
this  chapter  because  his  work  reveals  the  influence  of  scientific  thought. 

70  Thuc.    i.   22.    I.    The  Funeral  Oration   is  an   exception   to  the   usual   arrangement   in 
pairs. 


348  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

In  a  treatise  entitled  the  Carwn,  on  the  ideal  human  form,  he  set 
forth  his  theory  as  to  the  mathematical  proportions  of  the  body. 
Taking  the  width  of  the  middle  finger  as  a  unit,  he  mechanically 
constructed  the  whole  human  frame  in  multiples  of  this  measure, 
and  with  the  same  scientific  precision  determined  its  pose  and  at- 
titude. The  statue  in  bronze,  made  to  illustrate  his  principle,  was 
also  termed  the  Canon.  It  is  a  nude  athlete  walking,  with  a  spear 
over  the  left  shoulder,  hence  called  Doryphorus  — "  spear-bearer." 
The  copies  are  in  marble  of  Roman  date,  the  best  being  in  the  Na- 
tional Museum  of  Naples.  Undoubtedly  they  do  ill  justice  to  the 
original.  The  head  is  somewhat  oblong,  with  scant  facial  expression, 
and  the  body  seems  to  us  too  heavy.  Apart  from  the  general  har- 
mony of  propcrtiens  we  find  little  in  these  copies  to  admire,  and  we 
cannot  understand  why  the  Doryphorus  remained  the  type  of  athlete 
till  the  period  of  Alexander  the  Great.'^  More  beautiful  to  the 
modem  eye  is  the  Wounded  Amazon,  remarkable  for  the  graceful 
attitude,  the  flowing  line  of  contour,  the  simple  beauty  of  the  drap- 
ery, and  in  the  best  copy,  the  fine  proportions  of  the  head. 

Architecture :  the  Nike  balustrade.  A  departure  from  the  Peri- 
clean  standard  took  place  not  only  in  statues  but  also  in  architecture 
and  its  decorative  sculptures.  In  this  period  the  Atlienians  sur- 
rounded the  little  Nike  temple  with  a  balustrade  of  stone  slabs, 
adorned  with  reliefs  of  Victories  in  various  attitudes.  Among  the 
best-preserved  of  these  figures,  and  far  the  most  admired,  is  the 
"  Nike  adjusting  her  sandal."  The  change  that  has  been  introduced 
into  art  we  may  best  appreciate  by  contrasting  this  figure  with  the 
Maidens  of  the  Parthenon  frieze."'  There  is  a  great  loss  in  the  dig- 
nified restraint,  the  austere  reserve,  of  the  Periclean  age,  and  as 
great  a  gain  in  freedom  of  attitude,  in  lightness  of  drapery,  which 
reveals  the  human  form  with  its  physical  loveliness.  If  the  art  of 
the  Parthenon  exhibits  the  perfection  of  civic  achievement  in  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  citizen  to  the  moral  idea  of  the  state  —  in  a  word, 
the  highest  reach  of  Hellenic  civilization  —  the  Nike  sculptures 
equally  represent  the  first  downward  step  of  the  community  toward 
decay  and  dissolution  and  the  first  step  of  the  individual  toward  the 
free  development  of  his  personality. 

The  Erechtheum,  completed  409-7.     In  the  later  years  of  the 

71  H.   Civ.   p.   552   (Pliny);   Fowler  and   Wheeler,  234;    Gardner,  Principles  of  Greek  Art, 
21  f. 

72  P.  272. 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  349 

war  when  the  Athenians  were  cramped  for  money  and  the  masses 
were  reduced  to  the  point  of  starvation,  we  are  surprised  to  find  the 
State  engaged  in  finishing  the  Erechtheum,  a  building  l)egun  some 
years  earlier  but  suspended  doubtless  because  of  the  war."  The 
idea  may  have  been  to  furnish  the  needy  —  citizens,  metics,  and  slaves 
—  with  work,  or  more  probably  to  fulfil  a  religious  duty.  It  was  a 
temple  to  Athena  and  Erechtheus.  The  Athena  here  vvorshipj)ed  is 
known  as  Polias  —  guardian  of  the  City  —  in  contrast  with  the 
imperial  goddess  of  the  Parthenon;  her  image,  a  rudely  carved  log, 
was  more  highly  venerated  than  any  artistic  statue  of  recent  times. 
Erechtheus,  hero  of  the  fertility  of  earth,  had  ])een  placed  among 
the  earliest  kings  of  Athens,  and  in  this  temple  was  identified  with 
Poseidon.  Within  the  shrine  was  the  sea-god's  salt  spring  with  the 
mark  of  his  trident  in  the  rock;  outside  was  Athens'  olive  tree. 
With  the  irregularity  of  the  plan  we  are  not  concerned."'*  It  will 
suffice  here  to  notice  the'  beautiful  carvings  of  the  base  and  capital 
of  the  Ionic  columns  and  of  the  cornice  and  doorway.  These  rich 
but  delicate  ornamentations,  often  imitated  but  never  equalled,  are 
eternal  patterns  of  beauty. 

The  Porch  of  the  Maidens.  Such  are  the  columns  of  the  east 
and  north  porches  and  the  north  doorway  still  partially  preserved. 
On  the  south  is  the  Porch  of  the  Maidens,  in  which  full-grown  girls 
are  substituted  for  columns  as  supports.  In  a  country  in  which 
women  have  always  been  accustqmed  to  carrying  heavy  loads  on 
their  heads  the  idea  is  not  strange,  and  has  in  fact  been  expressed  in 
various  ancient  buildings.  The  conditions  recjuired  an  erect  dig- 
nified posture.  The  drapery,  covering  the  entire  body,  falls  in  large 
quiet  folds  to  the  feet.  In  ease,  simplicity  and  dignity  these  figures 
rise  to  the  Periclean  standard.  At  the  same  time  it  seems  probable 
that  they  have  a  religious  significance.  In  a  festival  in  honor  of 
Erechtheus  a  procession  of  girls  moved  to  his  shrine,  carrying  on  their 
heads  a  chest  which  contained  objects  for  his  worship.  It  is  a  rea- 
sonable view  that  the  Maidens  of  the  Porch  represent  these  girls 
and  tliat  the  architrave  above  their  heads  takes  the  place  of  the 
chest. '^ 

Two  types  of  civilization,  represented  in  art,  literature,  and 

73  Begun  after  the  peace  of  Nicias  or  possibly  before  the  beginning  of  the  war;  D'Ooge, 
Acropolis,   196.     Excerpts  from  building  inscriptions;   H.   Civ.  no.    107  f. 

74  Paus.    i,   26   (Botsford,   Source-Book,   p.    239);    Reasons   for  the    irregularity;    D'Ooge, 
Acropolis,    199. 

75  Elderkin,  Problems  in  Periclean  Buildings,   13-18. 


w 
K 
H 

X 
u 
w 


A  CULTURAL  REVOLUTION  351 

thought.  As  the  Parthenon  is  the  best  example  of  a  Doric  temple, 
the  Erechtheum  expresses  the  perfection  of  the  Ionic  style.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact  that  the  same  quarter  of  a  centur)'  saw  the  substantial 
completion  of  these  perfect  examples  of  widely  divergent  architectural 
orders.  Equally  notable  is  the  kinshiij  of  the  type  with  the  general 
civilization  of  the  time.  While  admiring  the  Parthenon  and  the 
Sophoclean  drama,  we  recognize  that  they  are  so  essentially  Hellenic 
as  to  defy  imitation  whereas  the  sculpture  of  the  Erectheum  and  of 
the  Nike  balustrade,  the  plays  of  Euripides,  and  the  reasoning  of 
Socrates,  however  high  their  excellence,  have  an  appreciable  kinship 
with  modem  civilization. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Grote,  chs.  xlvii,  xlviii;  Holni,  II,  ch.  xxvi;  Beloch,  II  i,  ch.  ix;  Abbott, 
Hellenica,  266-325;  Capps,  Homer  to  Theocritus,  237-72,  317-330;  Croiset, 
Aristophanes  and  Political  Parties  at  Athens;  Hist,  de  la  litt.  grecque,  III,  ch. 
vii,  IV,  chs.  i-iv;  Decharme,  Euripides  and  the  Spirit  of  His  Dramas  (Macmil- 
lan,  1905);  Fowler  and  Wheeler,  233  ff,  148  ff;  Gardner,  Handbook  of  Greek 
Sculpture,  326-382;  Glover,  FroDi  Pericles  to  Philip,  chs.  iv-vi;  Gomperz, 
Greek  Thinkers,  II,  III;  Grundy,  Thucydides  and  the  History  of  His  Age 
(London:  Murray,  1911);  Murray,  Euripides  and  His  Age  (Holt,  1913); 
Sihler,  Testimonium  Animae,  ch.  x;  Stobart,  Glory  that  was  Greece,  ch.  v; 
Verrall,  Euripides  the  Rationalist:  A  Study  of  Art  and  Religion  (Cambridge: 
University  Press,  1913);  Whibley,  Companion,  see  Contents;  Windelband,  His- 
tory of  Ancient  Philosophy,  108-134;  Wright,  Greek  Literature,  165-184,  238- 
270,  283-305,  369-373. 


COINS  OF  EPAMINONDAS 

CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE  AND  THE  ASCENDANCY 

OF  THEBES 

I.     The  Lacedaemonian  Empire 
404-371 

Old  professions  and  a  new  policy.  As  champions  of  particular- 
ism, of  the  untrammeled  sovereignty  of  the  individual  city-state,  the 
Spartans  had  led  their  allies  in  the  wearisome  war  with  Athens;  ^ 
and  finally  when  her  ramparts  and  her  ports  came  into  their  hands, 
they  and  their  allies  "  fell  to  levelling  the  fortifications  and  walls  with 
great  enthusiasm,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  music  of  women  pipers, 
for  they  thought  that  day  the  beginning  of  Hellenic  liberty."  -  The 
realization  of  their  hopes  would  have  turned  back  the  clock  of  history 
two  hundred  years  into  the  past.  When  however  the  Spartans  found 
themselves  masters  of  eastern  Hellas,  they  would  rise  to  no  higher 
conception  than  that  of  holding  what  they  had  gained;  disregarding 
their  promises,  they  thought  merely  to  substitute  their  city  for  Athens 
as  the  head  of  an  empire,  no  small  part  of  which  they  had  already 
sacrificed  to  Persia.^ 

Nature  of  the  change  in  leadership;  Lysander.  The  change 
from  Atlienian  to  Spartan  leadership  was  a  decisive  step  downward. 
The  Lacedaemonians  lacked  the  intelligence  and  the  broad,  generous 
humanism  of  Athenians;  they  were  totally  without  experience  in 
imperial  finance  and  in  the  administration  of  justice.  For  the  time 
being  these  men  of  narrow  mind  were  controlled  by  Lysander.  Bom 
of  a  Heracleid  father  and  helot  mother,"*  and  reared  in  the  poverty 

1  p.   361   below;   cf.   Isocrates,   Panegyricus,   122.     On   Isocrates,   an   eminent  thinker  and 
publicist   of   this   age,   often   cited    in   the   present   chapter,   see   p.    363   f.,    433    f.    below. 

2  Xenophon,  Hellenica,  ii.   2.  23. 

3  Isoc.   Payi.   122;   cf.   p.  389  above. 

4  On    Lysander,    see   Plutarch,    Lysander ;   cf.    p.    339   above.    On   the   social   classes  and 
conditions  of  Lacedaemon,  ch.  VI  above. 

352 


THE  LACEDA?:M0NIAN  empire— THEBES         353 

and  discipline  of  his  city,  he  had  developed  an  unscrupulous  clever- 
ness, an  astounding  mastery  of  men  and  parties,  and  an  ambition 
for  the  lordship  of  Hellas.  Throughout  the  Aegean  world  he  had 
organized  oligarchies  in  every  city  and  had  attached  them  to  him- 
self. On  him  all  eyes  centred  in  fear  or  admiration.  "  He  was 
the  first  Greek  to  whom  cities  erected  altars  and  offered  sacrifices  as 
to  a  god."  ''  In  his  honor  the  Samians  changed  the  name  of  their 
chief  festival  Heraea  to  Lysandria.  Thus  the  orientalizing  Greeks 
of  Asia  Minor  and  its  neighborhood  displayed  their  accjuired  servility 
in  the  deification  of  this  enormous  egoist. 

The  decarchies.  The  oligarchies  of  ten  —  decarchies  —  estab- 
lished by  Lysander  in  the  Aegean  cities  taken  from  Athens,  were 
ostensibly  to  hold  them  loyal  to  their  new  imperial  mistress.  The 
members  of  these  boards  were  partisans  of  Lysander,  usually  sup- 
ported by  a  Peloponnesian  garrison  under  a  helot  commander  (har- 
most),  who  catered  to  their  villainies  in  exchange  for  flattery  and 
spoil  for  himself  and  license  for  his  men.  Thus  protected,  the 
decarchs  reveled  in  the  plunder,  oppression,  and  murder  of  their 
fellow  citizens,  and  in  venting  upon  personal  enemies  the  hatred 
they  had  long  been  gathering  in  their  souls.  "  What  form  of  op- 
pression escaped  them?  Or  what  deed  of  shame  or  of  cruelty  did 
they  not  perpetrate?  The  most  lawless  they  deemed  most  faithful 
to  themselves;  they  courted  traitors  as  benefactors;  and  they  chose 
to  be  slaves  to  a  helot  that  they  might  outrage  their  own  native  land."  " 

The  Thirty,  404-3.  We  lack  detailed  knowledge  of  their  gov- 
ernment, but  may  be  sure  that  it  differed  little  in  character  from  the 
rule  of  the  Thirty  at  Athens.  This  board  was  instituted  under  intim- 
idation from  Lysander,  ostensibly  to  draw  up  a  new  constitution  for 
Athens,  but  in  reality  to  govern  with  absolute  sway.  One  of  the 
leaders  was  Critias,  a  eupatrid  writer  —  a  poet,  rhetorician,  and 
political  thinker,  noticed  above  as  a  pronounced  atheist,'  a  dilettante 
in  literature,  and  in  politics  a  heartless,  calculating  schemer.  His 
colleague  in  the  leadership  was  Theramenes  the  shifty,  who  while 
preferring  a  moderate  oligarchy,  had  managed  to  emerge  triumphant 
from  every  difficulty  through  which  he  had  passed.* 

5  Plut.  Lys.  18. 

6  Isoc.   Pan.   Ill;   cf.   110,   112-14. 

7  P.  338. 

8  At  a  time  when  Athens  should  have  made  good  her  losses  in  the  war  by  liberallj 
admitting  aliens  to  the  citizenship,  by  the  adoption  of  a  policy  which  afterward  made 
Rome  politically  great,   it  was  the  dream   of  Theramenes  to  restrict  the   franchise  to  those 


354  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Butchery  and  confiscation.  Beginning  in  moderation,  the  rule 
of  the  Thirty  rapidly  degenerated  to  a  selfish,  bloody  despotism. 
Supported  by  their  Lacedaemonian  harmost,  they  proceeded  to  con- 
demn and  put  to  death  their  political  enemies.  Executions  were 
always  accompanied  by  confiscations  of  property.  Still  wanting 
funds  for  the  payment  of  the  garrison,  they  next  proceeded  against 
wealthy  men  even  of  oligarchic  views.  As  many  alien  residents  were 
well-to-do,  they  inevitably  fell  victims  to  the  tyrants'  greed.  There 
were  wholesale  banishments.  Many  fled,  too,  through  fear;  so  that 
the  surrounding  states  were  full  of  fugitives  from  these  monsters. 
Among  their  oppressive  acts  was  an  edict  for  abolishing  higher  educa- 
tion in  literature  and  philosophy,  the  effect  of  which  if  long  continued, 
would  have  been  to  wipe  Athens  from  the  history  of  civilization. 

Meanwhile  by  protesting  against  the  violence  of  the  Thirty,  Thera- 
menes  incurred  the  mortal  hatred  of  Critias,  to  whom  the  very  idea 
of  moderation  or  of  compromise  meant  overthrow  and  death.  With 
frantic  haste  Theramenes  was  imprisoned  and  compelled  to  drink  the 
deadly  hemlock.  More  violent  grew  the  reign  of  terror  till  in  the 
eight  months  of  the  oligarchy  the  butcher's  bill  mounted  to  fifteen 
hundred  lives. 

The  fall  of  the  Thirty,  403.  In  spite  of  orders  from  Sparta 
the  neighbors  of  Athens  received  the  exiles  with  sympathy  and  aid. 
From  Thebes,  Thrasybulus,  one  of  these  refugees,  led  a  small  band 
of  patriots  across  the  border  to  seize  a  fortress  on  Mount  Fames. 
Thence  after  increasing  his  force  to  a  thousand  he  occupied  Peiraeus. 
With  so  small  a  band  it  was  a  bold  stroke;  but  this  stronghold  of 
democracy  welcomed  him  and  reinforced  his  army.  In  the  streets  of 
the  port  town  the  patriots  battled  with  a  militar)^  force  of  the  Thirty, 
defeated  it,  and  killed  Critias.  Soon  afterward  the  democracy  was 
restored.  About  the  same  time  many  decarchies  fell.  The  Spartans 
permitted  all  this  to  happen  because  they  disapproved  of  the  insolence 
and  the  vaulting  ambition  of  Lysander,  who  was  playing  the  despot 
throughout  their  empire.  Confronted  by  a  menacing  opposition  at 
home,  he  retired  into  exile.^ 

The  expedition  of  Cyrus,  401.     Shortly  after  these  events  Cyrus, 


who  could  equip  themselves  at  their  own  expense  for  war.    What   Athtns  needed,   how- 
ever,  was   not   fewer  citizens   but   a   stronger,    less  hampered,    executive. 

9  Sources  for  the  Thirty;  Xen.  Hell.  ii.  ,3  f . ;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  34-40;  Lysias,  Orations, 
especially  Against  Eratosthenes  and  Against  Agoratus;  Diod.  xiv.  3-6;  Justin  v.  8-10.  On 
the  personal  designs  of  Lysander,  Plut.  Lys.  25  f.,  30;  Diod.  xiv.  13. 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EM I'IRE— THEBES         355 

vvitli  whose  aid  Peloponnese  had  triumphed  over  Athens,^"  set  out 
at  the  head  of  about  tliirtebn  thousand  Greek  me;-cenaries  and  a  much 
larger  number  of  Asiatics  against  his  brother  Artaxerxes,  who  had 
succeeded  to  the  kingship  of  Persia."  The  prize  of  battle  was  to  be 
the  throne.  At  the  town  of  Cunaxa  not  far  from  Babylon  the 
brothers  met.  The  Greeks  were  victorious  over  a  greatly  superior 
force;  but  Cyrus  was  killed,  and  the  expedition  therefore  failed. 
Altliough  the  Hellenic  generals  were  entrapped  and  slain  by  the 
enemy,  the  mercenary  force  elected  new  commanders,  among  them 
Xenophon.  According  to  his-  account,  vividly  presented  in  the  Ana- 
basis, this  young  man,  an  Athenian  of  the  school  of  Socrates,  was 
the  inspiring  genius  of  the  retreat.  The  homeward  march  of  the 
Ten  Thousand  across  rivers,  over  mountains,  and  through  the  deep 
snows  of  Armenia,  ever  harassed  by  the  enemy  and  in  want  of  food 
and  clothing,  was  a  heroic  achievement.  It  proved  that  the  Greeks 
had  not  lost  their  virility,  and  it  laid  bare  the  weakness  of  Persia. 

War  between  Lacedaemon  and  Persia,  beginning  in  400.  A 
result  of  this  expedition  was  war  between  Lacedaemon  and  Persia;  ^- 
for  the  Spartans  had  given  aid  to  Cyrus.  A  Peloponnesian  army 
accordingly  invaded  Asia  Minor,  and  was  reinforced  by  the  remnant  of 
the  Ten  Thousand.  Ultimately  all  or  nearly  all  the  Hellenic  cities 
were  liberated;  and  some  native  towns  in  the  interior,  including 
Pergamum,  were  taken.  In  396  Agesilaus,  king  of  Lacedaemon, 
took  command.  Though  far  from  brilliant,  he  was  master  of  the 
art  of  war  as  taught  in  Sparta;  and  with  an  army  of  scarcely  more 
than  twenty  thousand  men,  he  made  headway  against  the  forces  of 
the  empire.  Encouraged  by  the  expedition  of  Cyrus,  he  hoped  to 
win  for  Hellas  a  great  part  of  Asia  Minor.^^ 

General  dissatisfaction  with  Spartan  leadership.  In  the  eyes 
of  many  Greeks,  however,  these  achievements  could  not  atone  for  the 
prodigious  injustice  inflicted  upon  them  by  Sparta.  The  decarchies 
and  the  Thirty  were  but  a  fraction  of  the  grievance.  To  neighbors 
and  allies  the  leading  city  seemed  committed  to  a  policy  of  self- 
aggrandisement.  Opposition  in  a  weaker  State  she  crushed  with 
war   and    devastation.     Her   greater    allies   were    irritated    by   their 

10  p.   322. 

11  Xenophon,   Anabasis ;  Hell.   iii.    1.    1   f. 
12Xen.   Hell.    iii.    1.    3   ff. 

13  Xen.  Hell.  iv.   1.  41;  Agesilaus  i.  36  (year  394);  Ox.  Hell.  xvii.  4  (his  next  expedition 
was  to  be  against  Cappadocia). 


356  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

total  exclusion  from  the  advantages  of  victory  over  Athens.  Chief 
factor  in  bringing  on  the  war,  Corinth  ^*  had  lost  her  colonies  on  the 
west  of  Greece  and  had  seen  the  ruin  of  her  commerce  and  industry 
with  no  corresponding  gain.  Thebes  had  profited  by  the  pillage 
of  Attica  and  by  tightening  her  grip  on  the  Boeotian  federation;  ^^ 
but  in  proportion  to  the  exaltation  of  Sparta  both  States  suffered 
depression  in  the  general  council  of  Peloponnese.  Both  were  split 
into  patriotic  and  laconizing  factions  at  bitter  feud  with  each  other; 
and  when  Sparta  intermeddled,  the  two  States  declared  war.^*^ 
Argos,   always  at  heart  an  enemy  of   Sparta,  joined  the  coalition. 

Athens  and  the  coalition  against  Lacedaemon.  In  Athens  since 
the  fall  of  the  Thirty  the  radical  democrats,  who  usually  controlled 
the  government,  were  hostile  to  Lacedaemon.  To  them  it  was  a  source 
of  pride  and  of  encouragement  that  the  Persian  king  had  appointed 
the  Athenian  Conon  ^^  admiral  of  a  fleet  to  operate  in  the  Aegean 
sea  against  the  Lacedaemonians.  With  the  connivance  of  the  Five 
Hundred,^®  but  against  the  judgment  of  the  moderates,  the  extreme 
democrats  secretly  sent  him  men  and  supplies.^-'  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances tliey  welcomed  the  opportunity  to  join  with  Thebes, 
/  Corinth,  Argos,  and  a  few  lesser  states  in  a  coalition  against  Sparta. 
/    Thus  arose  the  Corinthian  war.-° 

The  Corinthian  war,  395-387.  Early  in  the  war  the  Lacedaemon- 
ians found  it  necessary  to  recall  Agesilaus  from  Asia.  He  obeyed; 
but  it  is  clear  that,  though  he  had  thus  far  cherished  hopes  for  all 
Hellas,  his  spirit  was  henceforth  embittered  against  those  States 
which  had  thwarted  his  pan-Hellenic  ambition.'^  In  fact  the  war 
was  a  disasitrous  blunder;  for  Spartan  oppression  lost  severity  as  the 
Hellenes  were  already  learning  to  safeguard  their  local  liberties, 
while  enjoying  the  benefits  of  national  unity. 

Small  victories  were  won  by  the  Lacedaemonians  yet  with  little 
comfort  to  the  winners.^-  These  gains,  however,  were  more  than 
offset  by  an  overwhelming  naval  victory  of  Conon,  off  Cnidus,  over 

14  p.  262. 

15  Ox.  Hell.  xii.  3;  cf.  Botsford,  in  Pol.  Set.  Quart.  XXV  (1910).  292  ff. 
leXen.    Hell.    ii.   4.   30   (403   B.    C);   Ox.    Hell.   ii.   2   f. 

17  P.  326  above.    He  was  appointed  in  397;  Ktesias  63  f . ;  Plut.  Artax.  21;  Isoc.  Phil.  63. 

18  The  old  Council  of  Five  Hundred. 

19  Ox.  Hell.   i.  3. 

20  Trouble  between  Locris  and  Phocis  was  tiie  immediate  occasion;  Xen.  Hell.  iii.  5.  3  f. 
On  the  influence  of  Persian  gold  in  bringing  on  this  war,  Xen.  Hell.  iii.  5.  If.;  Ox.  Hell. 
ii.  2.     Fragment  of  treaty  between   Athens  and  Boeotia;   Hicks  and  Hill,   no.   84. 

21  Especially   against  the  Thebans;    Plut.    Ages.   26. 

2  2  One  near  Corinth;  Xen.  Hell.  iv.  2.  9-23;  Diod.  xiv.  83;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  88.  An- 
other at  Coroneia;  Xen.  Hell.  iv.  3.   15-23;  Diod.  /.  c. ;  Plut.  Ages.   18  f. 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         357 


MONUMENT  OF  THE  KNIGHT,  DEXILEOS 

the  Peloponnesian  fleet  (394).^^  Thus  fell  the  Lacedaemonian  naval 
supremacy  which  ten  years  earlier  had  been  established  by  Persian 
gold.     The  first  fruit  of  the  victory  was  the  liberation  of  the  maritime 

23  Xcn.  Hell.  iv.  3.  10-12;  Diod.  xiv.  79,  83. 


358 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


states  from  the  Laconian  garrisons.-*  In  the  following  year  Conon 
sailed  into  the  harbors  of  Peiraeus.  With  the  labor  of  his  crews 
and  with  Persian  money,  increased  by  contributions  from  Thebes  and 
other  friendly  States,  he  rebuilt  the  fortifications  of  the  port  town 
and  the  Long  Walls.  After  the  completion  of  these  works  Athens 
again  counted  as  a  power  in  Hellas.-^  She  recovered  Scyros,  Imbros, 
and  Lemnos,  long  occupied  by  her  colonists,  and  renewed  her  alliance 
with  various  Aegean  states.^'' 

A  Lacedaemonian  regiment  destroyed,  390.  A  graver  mis- 
fortune befell  Lacedaemon  by  land.  Recent  years  had  seen  a  great 
development  of  light  infantry.  A  master  of  this  branch  of  warfare 
was  the  Athenian  Iphicrates,  who  had  trained  his  light  troops  to  a 
high  pitch  of  efficiency.     With  this  force,   in  the  neighborhood  of 


MESSEXE 

Corinth,  he  attacked  a  heavy  battalion  —  mora  —  of  Lacedaemonians, 
six  hundred  strong,  and  annihilated  it.  Among  the  slain  were  two 
hundred  and  fifty  Spartans.  It  was  a  terrible  calamity,  for  the  whole 
Lacedaemonian  force  counted  but  six  such  battalions.  The  number 
of  Spartans  had  so  shrunk  that  they  could  entertain  no  hope  of 
ever  filling  the  vacant  ranks;  they  were  too  conservative  to  adapt 
themselves  to  new  military  conditions;  and  the  shock  to  their  martial 
prestige  proved  irremediable.^'^ 

The  treaty  of  Antalcidas,  387.  For  some  time  Sparta  had  been 
treating  with  Persia  for  peace;  and  now  as  the  tide  of  war  turned 
decidedly  against  her,  she  urged  on  the  negotiations.  Ker  deputy 
Antalcidas   rewon  the   King's   support,    which    speedily  restored   to 

24Xen.  Hell.  iv.  8.  1-3;  Diod.  xiv.  84;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  89. 

25  Xen.  Hell.  iv.  8.  9  f. ;  Diod.  xiv.  85;  Nepos,  Conon,  4;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  90  (the 
Athenian?  had  already   begun  the  work). 

26  Diod.   xiv.  94  (chiefly  through  Thrasybulus) ;   cf.   Nepos,   Conon,  5. 

27  The  troops  of  Iphicrates  were  called  peltasts,  from  pelta,  the  light  round  shield  which 
they  carried.  On  the  event,  Xen.  Hell.  iv.  5.  11-17;  Diod.  xiv.  91;  Plut.  Ages.  22.  This 
battle  was  fought  at  Lechaeum.  A  mora  now  contained  three  perioeci  to  two  Spartans. 
At  this  time  the  total  number  of  Spartans  of  military  age  did  not  exceed  2,000;  Cavaignac, 
in  Klio  XII  (1912).  270. 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         359 

Sparta  her  dominance  in  the  conflict.  At  the  summons  of  llie  satrap 
Tiribazus,  accordingly,  deputies  from  the  Hellenic  States  met  at 
Sardis  to  hear  the  terms  of  peace  dictated  by  the  King.  When 
the  assembly  had  convened,  the  satrap  i)ointed  to  the  royal  seal  at- 
tached to  the  document  and  read  the  contents :  — 

"  King  Artaxerxes  deems  it  right  that  the  cities  of  Asia,  with  the  islands 
of  Clazomenae  and  Cyprus,  should  belong  to  himself.  The  remaining 
Hellenic  cities,  small  and  great,  he  wishes  to  leave  independent,  with  the 
exception  of  Lemnos,  Imbros,  and  Scyros,  which  three  as  formerly  are  to 
belong  to  Athens.  Should  any  of  the  parties  concerned  not  accept  this 
peace,  I  Artaxerxes,  together  with  those  who  share  my  views,  will  war 
against  him  or  them  by  land  and  sea,  with  ships  and  with  money."  -8 

Effects  of  the  treaty.  The  treaty  required  the  Athenians  to  give 
up  their  maritime  league,  Thebes  to  grant  independence  to  her  Boeo- 
tian allies,  and  Corinth  and  Argos,  now  closely  united,  to  separate. 
All  the  greater  enemies  of  Lacedaemon  disliked  the  terms,  but  all 
were  constrained  to  accept  them.  It  was  a  disgrace  to  Hellas  that  her 
Asiatic  cities  should  be  definitively  surrendered  to  the  King,  and 
that  he  should  become  the  arbiter  of  her  fate.-^  It  was  unfortunate, 
too,  that  the  duty  of  enforcing  the  peace  fell  chiefly  to  the  Lacedae- 
monians, who,  having  learned  nothing  by  experience,  exercised  their 
renewed  power  with  insolent  brutality.  During  the  decade  imme- 
diately following  this  treaty  Hellas  was  in  a  miserable  plight,  as 
Isocrates,  writing  in  the  midst  of  this  wretchedness,  testifies:  "Who 
could  desire  a  condition  of  things  in  which  pirates  hold  the  seas, 
mercenaries  occupy  the  cities,  and  instead  of  warring  against  foreign- 
ers in  behalf  of  their  country,  the  citizens  fight  with  each  other 
inside  the  walls.  More  cities  have  been  taken  in  war  than  before 
we  concluded  the  peace;  and  on  account  of  the  frequency  of  revo- 
lutions the  inhabitants  of  the  States  live  in  greater  despondency  than 
those  who  have  been  banished."  ^°  Hellas  was  full  of  exiles,  who 
menaced  their  home  states  with  violence  or  joined  mercenary  bands,  to 
disturb  the  peace  and  to  destroy  property  and  life  throughout  their 
nation.  In  spite  of  these  mischievous  results  it  will  be  made  clear  in 
the  course  of  this  chapter  that  the  treaty  of  Antalcidas  serv^ed  as  a 
beginning  of  the  most  important  peace  movement  in  Hellenic  history. 

Further  aggressions  of  Sparta.     To  rid  herself  of  possible  en- 

28Xen.  Hell.  v.   1.  31. 

29  Isoc.  Pan.   119-2i,   175. 

30  Isoc,   Pan.    115  f.    (3S0   B.C.)-     Piracy  was   due  to  the   collapse   of  the   Athenian  naval 
power,  and  internal  conflict  to  the  expulsion  of  Lacedaemonian  garrisons  from  the  cities. 


360  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

emies  Sparta  compelled  the  Mantineans  to  destroy  their  city  and  to 
scatter  in  villages  (384) ;  she  treacherously  seized  the  citadel  of 
Thebes  in  a  season  of  peace  (383).^^  At  the  same  time  she  was 
pushing  her  hegemony  into  northern  Greece.  In  the  later  years  of 
the  Peloponnesian  war  the  Lacedaemonians  had  gained  control  of 
the  region  about  the  Malian  gulf,  including  a  part  of  Thessaly. 
Farther  north  the  kingdom  of  Macedon,  growing  in  power,  and  men- 
acing the  Thessalian  states,  drove  them  into  alliance  with  Sparta. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  Lacedaemonians  steadily  extended 
their  influence  northward.^'" 

Rise  of  the  Chalcidic  league.  Meanwhile,  however,  a  rival  was 
growing  in  Chalcidice,  where  Olynthus,  by  absorbing  adjacent  com- 
munities, had  become  the  leading  city.  Thence  she  made  herself  the 
centre  of  a  Chalcidic  league  of  a  type  far  more  liberal  and  advanced 
than  any  other  thus  far  known  to  Hellas.  The  citizens  of  every 
city  had  rights  of  holding  property,  transacting  business,  and  con- 
tracting marriage  in  every  other  city;  one  body  of  laws  and  one 
citizenship  were  the  common  possessions  of  all.  In  a  great  degree 
the  union  had  the  character  of  a  single  state,  in  which  the  cities 
were  municipalities.  It  was  an  aggressive  power,  ever  intent  on 
annexing  new  communities  by  persuasion  or  force,  reaching  out 
Thraceward  toward  the  gold  mines  of  Mount  Pangaeus  and  wresting 
from  sedition-ridden  Macedon  its  very  capital,  Pella.  Even  those 
cities  which  were  forcibly  annexed  readily  lost  in  the  advantages  of 
their  new  connection  all  love  of  political  isolation.  Here  then  was 
offered  a  solution  of  the  peace  problem  of  Hellas,  a  cure  for  the 
interminable  interstate  strife,  of  internal  revolutions,  banishments, 
and  massacres.  At  the  request  of  neighboring  Hellenic  states  whose 
sovereignty  was  threatened  by  Olynthus,  Lacedaemon  interfered; 
and  in  a  war  of  four  years  (383-379)  she  destroyed  the  federation  and 
'^  forced  Olynthus  into  alliance  with  hcrself.^^ 

The  climax  of  Lacedaemonian  prosperity,  379.  By  these  mea- 
.sures  and  others  of  a  like  nature  Sparta  made  herself  supreme  over 
all  that  part  of  eastern  Hellas  which  she  had  not  surrendered  to 
Persia.     She  formed,  too.  a  treaty  of  alliance  with  Dionysius,  tyrant 

31  Xen.  Hell,  v,  2.   1-7,  25-36;  Diod.  xv.  5,  20;  Ox.  Hell.   I.  no.   13. 

32  Operation.s  about  the  Malian  gulf;  Thuc.  viii.  3.  The  Thessalian  situation  is  dis- 
cussed by  the  sophist  of  Larisa,  On  the  Constituion,  in  H.  Civ.  no.   116. 

33  Xen.  Hell.  v.  2.  11-19  (quoted  in  H.  Civ.  no.  119);  3.  1-26;  Diod.  xv.  20-23;  Hicks  ,ind 
Hill,  no.  99.  See  also  Freeman,  History  of  Federal  Government,  I.  190-97-  West,  in  CI. 
Fhilol.   IX  (1914).  24  ff. 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         361 

of  Greek  Sicily  and  Italy.''^  Never  before  had  Hellas  attained  to  so 
hi^h  a  degree  of  political  unity.  "  On  every  side  the  affairs  of 
I.acedaemon  had  signally  prospered:  Thebes  and  the  rest  of  the 
Boeotian  states  lay  absolutely  at  her  feet;  Corinth  had  become  her 
most  faithful  ally;  Argos  .  .  .  was  humbled  to  the  dust;  and  lastly, 
those  of  her  own  allies  who  displayed  a  hostile  feeling  toward  her 
had  been  punished;  so  that  to  all  outward  appearance  the  founda- 
tions of  her  empire  were  at  length  absolutely  well  and  securely  laid."  ^^ 

Agesilaus.  The  man  who  led  his  city  to  these  achievements  was 
Agesilaus,  the  embodiment  of  the  Lacedaemonian  spirit,  patriotic, 
ambitious,  and  efficient,  but  with  stunted  ideals,  unprogressive  alike 
in  military  art,  in  statesmanship,  and  in  humanism  —  a  man  who 
tested  the  right  or  wrong  of  every  action  by  the  sole  advantage  of 
Sparta,  whose  vision,  limited  to  brute  power,  took  no  account  of  the 
moral  forces  roused  through  Hellas  by  his  policy  of  blood  and  iron.^^ 

Liberation  of  Thebes,  379-8.  "  Abundant  examples  might  be 
found  alike  in  Hellenic  and  in  foreign  historv  to  prove  that  the 
Divine  powers  mark  what  is  done  amiss,  winking  neither  at  impiety 
nor  at  the  commission  of  unhallowed  acts ;  but  at  present  I  confine  my- 
self to  the  facts  before  me.  The  Lacedaemonians,  who  had  pledged 
themselves  by  oath  to  leave  the  states  independent,  had  laid  violent 
hands  on  the  acropolis  of  Thebes,  and  were  eventually  punished 
by  the  victims  of  that  iniquity  single-handed  —  the  Lacedaemonians, 
be  it  noted,  who  had  never  before  been  mastered  by  living  men."  ^'' 
With  these  words  Xenophon,  the  historian,  prepares  the  reader  for  the 
catastrophe  in  the  drama  of  Lacedaemonian  supremacy.  In  a  thrill- 
ing story  ^*  he  then  tells  how  a  few  patriots,  who  had  fled  to  Athens, 
secretly  returned  to  their  native  Thebes,  destroyed  the  oligarchy  set 
up  by  Sparta,  and  expelled  the  garrison  from  the  citadel.  Thebes 
was  now  free  and  at  war  with  Lacedaemon.  No  long  time  afterward 
a  Spartan  attempt  to  seize  Peiraeus  drove  Athens  into  alliance  with 
Thebes  (378). 

The  Second  Athenian  Confederacy,  organized  377.  From  the 
time  of  the  battle  off  Cnidus   (394)  ^^  the  former  allies  of  Athens, 

34  Alliance  not  later  than  387;   Xen.   Hell.   v.    1.   26,  28.     Athens  had  bid   in  vain  for  his 
friendship;   Hicks  and  Hill,   nos.  91,  98. 

35  Xen.  Hell.  v.  3.  27. 

36  To  Xenophon  (Hellenica,  Agesilaus)  he  was  an  almost  idea!  hero.    See  also  Plutarch, 
Agesilaus;  Nepos,  Agesilaus. 

37  Xen.  Hell.  v.  4.  1. 

38  Xen.  Hell.  v.  4  (379-378  B.  C). 
30  P.  356  f. 


362  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

having  had  enough  of  Lacedaemonian  tyranny,  began  returning  to 
her.  These  alliances,  dissolved  by  the  King's  treaty  (387),  were 
almost  immediately  renewed.  Now  that  she  faced  a  new  struggle 
with  Peloponnese,  Athens  called  upon  all  Hellenic  States,  and  on  all 
foreign  states  but  Persia,  to  join  in  a  league  of  protection  from  the 
common  tyrant.  In  377  it  was  decreed  by  the  council  and  the  as- 
sembly, "  in  order  that  the  Lacedaemonians  may  allow  the  Hellenes 
to  live  in  peace,  free  and  autonomous,  and  to  possess  their  respec- 
tive territories  in  security  .  .  . 

"  That  if  any  of  the  Hellenes  or  of  foreigners  dwelling  on  the  main- 
land, or  of  the  islanders,  except  such  as  are  subjects  of  the  King, 
wish  to  be  allies  of  the  Athenians  and  of  their  allies,  they  may  become 
such  while  preserving  their  freedom  and  autonomy,  using  the  form 
of  government  that  they  desire,  without  either  admittmg  a  garrison 
or  receiving  a  military  governor  or  paying  tribute,  and  upon  the  same 
terms  as  the  Chians,  the  Thebans,  and  the  other  allies.  .  .  .  From  the 
date  of  the  archonship  of  Nausinicus  it  shall  not  be  allowable  for  any 
Athenian,  either  in  behalf  of  the  State  or  as  a  private  person,  to 
acquire  either  a  house  or  a  piece  of  land  in  the  territory  of  the 
allies,  whether  by  purchase  or  by  mortgage  or  in  any  other  way."  *° 
By  this  provision  some  of  the  most  irritating  grievances  of  the  former 
confederacy,  such  as  the  imposition  of  tributes  and  colonization,  were 
to  be  avoided.  All  members  of  the  league  were  to  send  their  repre-, 
sentatives  to  a  congress  at  Athens,  in  which  the  Athenians  alone  were 
to  have  no  part.  A  resolution  passed  by  the  congress  and  the  Athen- 
ian assembly  was  to  be  binding  on  the  league.  Thus  Athens  was  made 
equal  to  her  collective  allies,  but  was  debarred  from  tyranny  over 
them.  By  resolution  duly  adopted  military  and  naval  forces  and 
money  contributions  were  to  be  levied  as  they  were  needed.  The 
constitution  of  the  Second  Confederacy,  as  it  is  named,  was  more 
equitable,  but  far  looser  and  less  efficient,  than  had  been  that  of  the 
fifth  century.*^ 

War  between  the  Confederacy  and  Peloponnese,  377-4.  War 
with  Peloponnese  went  on  for  several  years.  The  maritime  alliance, 
controlling  a  powerful  navy  and  supported  by  Thebes  with  her  splen- 
did troops,  outmatched  tlie  Doric  league.     No  definite  gain  resulted, 

40  H.  Civ.  no.  120  (in  the  original  document  the  names  of  the  confederates  are  signed). 
Form  of  admission  of  a  state,  no.  121.  Oath  of  allies,  no.  122.  Athenian  treaty  with  Chios 
(384-3),  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  98.  With  Byzantium  (378-7),  ib.  no,  100.  With  Chalcis  (378- 
7),  ib.   102.     See  also  Diod.   xv.   28-30. 

41  See  Marshall,    The  Second  Athenian  Confederacy. 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         363 

however,  and  in  374  all  were  ready  for  peace.  In  that  year  deputies 
irom  the  states  concerned  met  in  a  Second  Peace  Convention  at 
Sparta.*"  The  King's  treaty  was  made  the  basis  of  the  agreement, 
but  the  Persian  sovereign  was  unrepresented;  the  Greeks  were  al- 
ready leaming  that  they  could  conduct  their  own  affairs  without  his 
interference.  The  treaty  left  the  Athenian  confederacy  and  the 
Peloponnesian  league  intact.*^ 

The  war  renewed,  374-1.  The  agreement  was  immediately  vio- 
lated, however,  and  the  war  continued  three  years  longer.  Meanwhile 
Thebes,  abandoning  the  conflict  with  Lacedaemon,  gave  her  attention 
to  restoring  the  Boeotian  league  under  her  supremacy.**  Far  from 
limiting  her  ambition  to  Boeotia,  Thebes  now  attempted  the  subjuga- 
tion of  Phocis  —  a  movement  which  brought  a  Peloponnesian  army 
into  central  Greece  and  converted  Athenian  friendship  into  dislike. 

The  Third  Peace  Convention,  371.  Under  these  circumstances 
Athens  and  Lacedaemon  were  all  the  more  ready  to  conclude  peace. 
In  371  accordingly  the  Third  Peace  Convention  assembled  at  Sparta. 
All  the  Greek  governments  sent  their  deputies,  including  even  Diony- 
sius,  archon  of  Sicily,  and  Amyntas,  king  of  Macedon,  regarded  by 
the  Greeks  as  a  foreign  country.  The  Persian  king's  embassy  was 
present  to  take  part,  though  no  longer  to  dictate.*^  It  was  the  most 
representative  body  that  had  thus  far  gathered  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  and  was  further  notable  for  the  fact  that  its  purpose  was  not 
purely  Hellenic  but  international;  in  other  words,  it  was  the  first 
"  world  congress  "  in  the  interest  of  peace. 

Speeches  of  the  Athenian  deputies.  A  few  years  earlier  Isocra- 
tes,  the  great  Athenian  publicist,  had  advocated  an  eternal  peace 
among  the  Hellenes  and  a  common  war  upon  Persia  under  the  joint 
leadership  of  Lacedaemon  and  Athens.  The  speeches  of  the  three 
Athenian  envoys  in  this  convention,  apart  from  the  question  of  hos- 
tility to  Persia,  seem  little  more  than  echoes  of  his  words:  *°  "  It 
were  iust  and  right,"  said  one  Athenian  deputy  to  the  Lacedaemoni- 

42  The  first  being  that  of  Antalcidas  at  Sardis;  p.  434. 

43  Xen.   Hell.   vi.   2.    1;    Isocrates,   Antidosis,   109;    Plataicus,    10;   Nepos,    Timothcus,   2. 

44  The  treaty  was  broken  by  the  Athenian  admiral  Timotheus,  son  of  Conon.  For  this 
offense  he  was  tried  and  acquitted  though  not  restored  to  his  command;  Xen.  Hell.  vi. 
2.  1  ff. ;  Pseudo-Demosthenes,  Against  Timotheus  (written  in  362).— Thebes  subjugated 
Thespiae  and  destroyed  Plataea;  Xen.  Hell.  vi.  3.  1,  5;  Diod.  xv.  46,  SO.— On  the  organ- 
ization of  the  Boeotian  league;  p.  80  above;  H.  Civ.  no.  117;  Botsford,  in  Pol.  Set.  Quart. 
XXV,   284  ff. 

45  The  convention  in  general,  Xen.  Hell.  vi.  3.  2-20.  Dionysius  and  Amyntas  repre- 
sented; IG.  II.  51  23  f. ;  Aeschines,  Faithless  Embassy,  32.  The  Persian  king  represented; 
Diod.  XV.  50.  4;  Dionysius,  Lysias,  12. 

46  Isocrates,  Panegyricus  (380  B.  C).  Speeches  of  the  deputies  in  Xen.  Hell.  vi.  3.  3-17, 
Doubtless  Xenophon  has  preserved  at  least  the  substance  of  what  was  said. 


364  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ans,  "  even  to  refuse  to  bear  arms  against  each  other,  since,  as  tht 
story  runs,  the  first  strangers  to  whom  our  forefather  Triptolemus  *^ 
showed  the  unspeakable  mystic  rites  of  Demeter  and  Core,  mother  and 
daughter  were  your  ancestors  .  .  .  and  to  Peloponnese  first  he  gave 
as  a  gift  the  seed  of  Demeter's  grain.  .  ,  .  But  if,  as  it  would  seem, 
it  is  a  fixed  decree  of  Heaven  that  war  shall  never  cease  among  men, 
yet  ought  we  —  your  people  and  our  people  —  to  be  as  slow  as  pos- 
sible to  begin  it,  and  being  in  it,  as  swift  as  possible  to  bring  it  to 
an  end."  In  the  opinion  of  the  speaker  permanent  friendship  was 
based  on  the  gift  and  acceptance  of  a  certain  element  of  civilization. 
Another  speaker,  more  practical,  appealed  to  the  motive  of  expediency. 
"  To  revert  once  more  to  the  topic  of  expediency  and  common  inter- 
ests, it  is  admitted,  I  presume,  that,  looking  at  the  states  collectively, 
half  support  your  views,  half  ours;  and  in  every  single  state  one 
party  is  for  Sparta  and  another  for  Athens.  Suppose,  then,  that  we 
were  to  shake  hands,  from  what  quarter  can  we  reasonably  anticipate 
danger  and  trouble?  To  put  the  case  in  so  many  words,  as  long  as 
you  are  our  friends,  no  one  can  vex  us  by  land;  no  one,  while  we 
are  your  supporters,  can  injure  you  by  sea.  Wars  like  tempests 
gather  and  grow  to  a  head  from  time  to  time,  and  again  they  are  dis- 
pelled. That  we  all  know.  Some  future  day,  if  not  now,  we  shall 
crave,  both  of  us,  for  peace.  Why  then  need  we  wait  for  that  moment, 
holding  on  until  we  expire  under  the  multitude  of  our  ills,  rather  than 
take  time  by  the  forelock  and,  before  irremediable  mischief  betide, 
make  peace  ?  .  .  .  While  we  are  yet  in  the  heyday  of  our  strength  and 
fortune,  shake  hands  in  mutual  amity.  So  assuredly  shall  we  through 
you  and  you  through  us  attain  to  an  unprecedented  pinnacle  of  glory 
throughout  Hellas." 

Such  arguments  convinced  the  assembly  of  deputies,  which  accord- 
ingly passed  a  resolution  to  make  peace  on  the  following  terms: 
"  The  withdrawal  of  harmosts  from  the  cities,  the  disbanding  of 
armaments  naval  and  military,  and  the  guarantee  of  independence  to 
the  States.  If  any  State  transgresses  these  stipulations,  it  lies  in  the 
option  of  any  power  whatsoever  to  aid  the  States  so  injured,  while 
conversely,  to  bring  such  aid  is  not  compulsory  on  any  power  again.st 
its  will."  *^  Implicitly  the  Persian  king  was  eliminated  as  an  arbiter 
of  Hellenic  affairs;  and  the  guardianship  of  the  peace  was  intrusted 

47  Mythical  king  of  Eleusis  under  whom  the  mysteries  of  Demeter  and  Core  (daughter) 
are  said  to  have  been  introduced;  p.  144  f. 
48Xen.  Hell.  vi.  3.   18. 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         365 

in  a  democratic  spirit  to  all  the  Hellenes  who  should  interest  them- 
selves in  the  matter.  Naturally  the  lead  would  be  taken  by  the  more 
powerful  States.  Here  was  clearly  attained  a  condition  far  more 
favorable  to  peace  and  unity,  on  the  basis  of  good  will  and  common 
interest,  than  the  world  had  known  before. 

Epaminondas  against  Agesilaus.  The  good  results,  however, 
were  negatived  by  the  growing  ambition  of  Thebes.  In  the  preced- 
ing century  she  had  revealed,  in  her  federal  coinage,  an  intention  to 
merge  the  league  in  a  greater  Theban  State,'*-'  and  had  attempted 
in  vain  to  sign  the  King's  treaty  of  387  with  the  name  The])ans  for 
all  Boeotia.  Since  that  date  her  unification  of  Boeotia  and  her  mili- 
tary improvements  had  vastly  augmented  her  strength,  and  she  was 
now  represented  in  the  convention  by  Epaminondas,  whose  name  stands 
in  the  list  of  the  world's  most  brilliant  commanders.  Athens  signed 
for  herself,  leaving  her  allies  to  affix  their  individual  names.  When 
Sparta,  for  reasons  unknown  to  us,  was  permitted  to  sign  for  her 
allies,  Epaminondas  wrote  the  name  Thebans  with  the  intention  of 
making  it  include  all  Boeotia.  The  convention  accepted  the  signa- 
ture for  Thebes  only,  and  was  on  the  point  of  allowing  the  other 
States  of  the  league  to  sign  for  themselves,  when  Epaminondas  came 
forward  with  the  request  that  the  name  Boeotians  be  substituted  for 
that  of  Thebans.  Agesilaus  hotly  objected,  whereupon  Epaminondas 
declared  in  substance  that  Thebes  had  as  good  a  right  to  represent  all 
the  Boeotians  as  Sparta  to  represent  the  perioeci  of  Laconia.  Agesi- 
laus, however,  repudiated  his  claim  and  arbitrarily  erased  from  the 
document  the  signature  of  Thebes,  thus  debarring  that  State  from 
the  peace.^" 

Boeotian  militarism.  The  Theban  envoy  had  acted  on  mature 
deliberation  and  in  full  confidence  of  the  ability  of  his  own  State  to 
maintain  the  principle  which  he  advocated.  Boeotia  had  developed  a 
body  of  heavy  infantry  unequalled  in  that  generation,  and  her  cavalry 
far  surpassed  that  of  Peloponnese.  Epaminondas,  though  thus  far 
known  chiefly  as  a  man  of  culture,  a  philosopher  of  the  Pythagorean 
school,  was  now  revealing  himself  as  a  brilliant  orator  and  a  bold, 
shrewd  diplomatist.     While   facing  Agesilaus   in  the  c'onvention   at 

49  The  issue  of  coins  for  all  Boeotia  bearing  the  name  of  Thebes;  Botsford,  in  Pol. 
Sci.   Quart.   XXV.   284,   referring  to  Head,   Greek  Coins,  VIII,   p.   xxix   and   plate   xii,    1-8. 

50  Xen.  Hell.  vi.  3.  19f. ;  Plut.  Ages.  28;  Paus.  ix.  13.  2;  cf.  Grote,  Hist  of  Greece,  X. 
166-74.  The  contention  of  Epaminondas  was  unsupported  by  historj';  the  Theban  controJ 
of  Boeotia  was  recent,  whereas  that  of  Sparta  over  Laconia  was  centuries  old. 


366  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Sparta  he  doubtless  felt  certain  tliat  at  need  his  State  would  not 
lack  a  general  worthy  of  her  brave,  well-trained  soldiers. ^^ 

The  battle  of  Leuctra,  371..  The  convention  was  dissolved,  and 
the  deputies  returned  to  tlieir  homes,  while  Thebes  prepared  for  her 
great  conflict  witl:i  Peloponnese.  The  army  sent  by  Lacedaemon  into 
Phocis,  10,000  strong,  now  received  orders  to  invade  Boeotia.  King 
Cleombrotus,  its  general,  obeyed.  An  army  of  6,000  under  the 
boeotarchs,  including  Epaminondas,  met  him  at  Leuctra.  On  his  left 
wing  Epaminondas  massed  his  Thebans  in  a  column  fifty  deep,  and 
led  them  in  an  irresistible  charge  upon  the  Lacedaemonian  force  sta- 
tioned opposite,  while  his  Boeotian  allies,  in  echelon  formation,  barely 
came  to  close  quarters  with  the  Peloponnesians.  In  other  words,  the 
Theban  commander  won  by  throwing  a  superior  force  upon  the  crit- 
ical point  in  his  enemy's  line.  Of  the  seven  hundred  Spartans  pres- 
ent four  hundred,  including  the  king,  were  slain.  Sparta  acknowl- 
edged her  defeat  and  withdrew  the  Peloponnesian  army.  Her 
supremacy  was  forever  ended. ^-  Whether  her  collapse  was  for  good  or 
evil  depended  upon  the  years  to  come.  Here  it  will  suffice  to  repeat 
that  the  convention  at  Sparta  preceding  the  battle  of  Leuctra  was 
evidence  of  notable  political  progress  and  embodied  a  bright  hope  of 
international  peace. 

II.     The  Ascendancy  of  Thebes 

371-362 

Effect  of  the  battle  on  the  Spartans  and  on   Peloponnese. 

"  After  these  events  a  messenger  was  despatched  to  Sparta  with  news 
of  the  disaster.  He  reached  his  destination  on  the  last  day  of  the 
g}'mnopaedia,  precisely  when  the  chorus  of  grown  men  had  entered 
the  theatre.  The  ephors  heard  the  mournful  tidings  not  without 
grief  and  pain,  as  needs  they  must  in  my  opinion;  but  for  all  that 
they  did  not  dismiss  the  chorus,  but  allowed  the  contest  to  run  out 
its  natural  course.  What  they  did  was  to  deliver  the  names  of  the 
slain  to  their  friends  and  families,  with  a  word  of  warning  to  the 
women  not  to  make  any  loud  lamentation  but  to  bear  their  sorrow  in 
silence;  and  the  next  day  it  was  a  striking  spectacle  to  see  those  who 

51  The  character  and  early  training  of  Epaminondas;  Diod.  xv.  39;  Plut.  Pelop.  3  f . ; 
De  latenter  vivendo,  1129  c;  Nepos,  Epaminondas,  1-5;  Cicero,  Tusculan  Disputations, 
i.  2.  4;   Athen.   iv.  84. 

52  Invasion  of  central  Greece  by  a  Peloponnesian  army;  p.  440  above.  The  battle  of 
Leuctra;  Xen.  Hell.  vi.  4.  3-15;  Plut.  Pelop.  20-23;  Paus.  ix.  13.  3-12;  Polyaenus,  ii.  3.  8 
(religious  ruse  for  heartening  the  men). 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         367 

had  relatives  among  the  fallen  moving  to  and  fro  in  public  with 
bright  and  radiant  looks,  while  of  those  whose  friends  were  reported 
to  be  living  barely  a  man  was  to  be  seen,  and  these  persons  flitted  by 
with  lowered  heads  and  scowling  brows  as  if  in  humiliation."  ^* 

Narrow  and  illiberal  as  were  the  Spartans,  we  cannot  help  admir- 
ing their  resolution  and  their  discipline.  After  the  great  loss  at 
Leuctra  there  remained  scarcely  more  than  a  thousand  Spartans 
capable  of  bearing  arms,  and  what  was  far  worse,  their  military 
prestige  had  vanished,  and  they  had  accumulated  no  treasure  of  justice 
and  mercy  to  draw  the  sympathy  of  men  in  the  hour  of  need.  No 
sooner  had  the  allies  become  fully  aware  of  the  magnitude  of  the  event 
at  Leuctra  than  they  disregarded  their  confederate  obligations,  to 
pursue  their  individual  interests.  Throughout  Peloponnese  a  demo- 
cratic effort  to  gain  control  of  the  States,  in  opposition  to  Sparta, 
effected  in  many  a  town  and  city  executions,  banishments,  revolu- 
tions,    and     massacres.     Peloponnese     was     sinking     into     chaos.^* 

Fourth  Peace  Convention,  371.  In  the  desire  to  save  for  peace 
and  order  what  they  could  from  the  general  wreck,  doubtless  too  in 
their  own  interest,  the  Athenians  summoned  a  Fourth  Peace  Conven- 
tion to  meet  in  their  city.  How  many  States  were  represented  we  do 
not  know.  At  all  events  the  deputies  adopted  the  following  resolu- 
tion :  "  I  will  abide  by  the  terms  of  treaty  contained  in  the  King's 
rescript  and  in  the  decrees  of  the  Athenians  and  allies.  If  any  one 
assails  any  city  among  those  which  have  taken  this  oath,  I  will  render 
assistance  to  that  city  with  all  my  strength."  The  pledge  to  support 
the  treaty  was  a  new  element  in  the  peace  movement.  Through  this 
c0nvention  Athens  attempted  to  usurp  the  place  of  Sparta  as  head  of 
the  Peloponnesian  states,  and  placed  herself  under  obligations  to 
protect  them  if  assailed. ^^ 

The  Arcadian  league  founded,  371-0.  The  first  consequence  of 
the  treaty  was  the  resolution  of  the  Mantineans  to  rebuild  their  city. 
They  were  aided  by  other  Peloponnesians,  and  Sparta  dared  not  in- 
terfere. Next  Mantinea,  Tegea,  and  all  the  communities  of  southern 
and  central  Arcadia  organized  themselves  in  a  league.  As  a  capital 
they  founded  Megalopolis.  In  it  met  a  council  of  fifty,  representing 
the  communities  according  to  their  population,  and  the  assembly  of 

53  Xen.  Hell.  vi.  4.  16. 

55Xen.  //w/.^vi.  "5.  1-3.  Mantinea  and  Elis  are  mentioned  among  the  states  repre- 
sented. 


368  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  Ten  Thousand,  including  all  the  citizens  of  the  league.^^  As 
Lacedaemon  threatened  the  new  federation,  Thebes  came  to  its  assist- 
ance. Having  recently  gathered  under  her  hegemony  many  States 
of  central  Greece,  she  was  able  to  despatch  to  Peloponnese  an  army 
which,  increased  on  the  way  by  the  forces  of  allies,  amounted  to  40,000 
men  or  more,  commanded  by  Epaminondas  and  his  associate  boeo- 
tarchs.^^  For  the  first  time  in  recorded  history  Laconia  was  rav- 
aged and  Sparta  threatened  by  invaders.  No  effective  resistance 
could  be  offered. 

The  liberation  of  Messenia,  369.  The  permanent  result  of  the 
expedition,  however,  was  the  liberation  of  Messenia.  While  the 
perioecic  towns  of  the  south  shore  remained  faithful  to  Sparta,  the 
rest  of  the  country  was  organized  in  a  new  State.  The  helots,  now 
emancipated,  became  its  citizens,  increased  in  number  by  the  return 
of  exiles  whose  ancestors  had  escaped  to  other  lands  from  hard 
bondage  to  the  Spartans.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  centuries  of 
serfdom  had  not  robbed  these  people  of  their  love  of  freedom  or 
degraded  them  below  the  capability  for  self-government.  As  a  capi- 
tal for  the  State  recalled  to  life  Messene  was  founded  on  Mount 
Ithome,  the  strongest  military  position  south  of  Corinth.^*  Exten- 
sive ruins  of  the  city  walls  remain  to  the  present  day.  It  was  only 
I'ust  that  this  brave  manly  folk  should  be  rescued  from  serfdom,  but 
it  meant  the  doom  of  Sparta  as  a  power  in  Hellas.  Nearly  a  half 
of  Lacedaemon,  and  that  too  the  most  fertile  part,  was  wrested  from 
her.  Thereafter  Hellas  had  to  work  out  its  problems  without  her 
aid;  for  the  rest  of  the  Greeks  were  unwilling  to  sacrifice  Messenia 
to  her,  and  she  would  enter  into  no  agreement  with  them  which  did 
not  involve  the  recovery  of  her  lost  territory. 

Thebes  in  Northern  Greece;  Fifth  Peace  Convention,  368; 
Sixth  Peace  Convention,  367.  Shortly  afterward,  through  the  cam- 
paigns of  Pelopidas,  who  stood  second  to  Epaminondas  in  generalship, 
Thebes  forced  her  hegemony  upon  Thessaly  and  Macedon,  but  no- 
where was  she  able  to  maintain  peace  or  establish  a  firm  control. 
Under  these  circumstances  an  agent  of  a  Persian  satrap  dared  ap- 
se The  Arcadian  league;  Paus.  viii.  27;  Diod.  xv.  59;  Pomptow,  in  Ath.  Mitt.  XIV 
(1889).  15  ff. ;  PW.  II.  1127  ff.  A  request  for  help,  repudiated  by  Athens,  was  laid  before 
Thebes;  Diod.  xv.  62.  3;  Demosthenes,  For  the  Megalopolitans,   12,   19. 

57  The  Theban  hegemony  extended  over  Phocis,  Locris,  Acamania,  Mails,  Oetaea,  and 
Euboea;  Pohlmann,  Griech.  Gesch.  193.  The  invasion  of  Peloponnese;  Plut.  Ages.  31 
(40,000);  Pelop.  24  (70,000);   Diod.   XV.  62.   5  (50,000). 

58  Plut.  Pelop.  24;  Isocrates,  Archidamus,  27  ff . ;  Diod.  xv.  66  (sketch  of  Messenian 
history  from  mythical  times),  67;   Paus.   iv.  27   (building  Messene),  28  ff.   (later  history). 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         369 

pear  in  Greece  to  brinf;  about  a  settlement  of  affairs  in  the  King's 
interest.  A  Fifth  Peace  Convention,  accordingly,  representing  the 
principal  states  concerned,  including  Dionysius  and  the  Persian  king, 
met  at  Delphi.  As  Sparta  and  Thebes  failed  to  agree  on  the  Messen- 
ian  question,  the  meeting  bore  no  fruit.  ■''■*  Thereupon  arose  an  un- 
dignified scramble  for  the  King's  favor.  When  their  embassies  met  in 
his  palace  at  Susa  in  a  Sixth  Peace  Convention,  and  he  believed 
himself  to  be  once  more,  and  with  little  effort  of  his  own,  the  arbiter 
of  Hellas,  he  dictated  among  the  terms  of  peace  the  independence  of 
Messenia  and  the  disbanding  of  tlie  Atheni,an  navy,  which  had  re- 
cently checked  the  expansion  of  Thebes.  His  tem\s  were  clearly  a 
recognition  of  Theban  hegemony  —  a  favor  won  by  Pelopidas  who 
headed  the  Theban  legation.  On  hearing  the  terms,  Leon,  an  Athen- 
ian, protested  to  hi-s  fellow-deputies:  "  Upon  my  word,  Athenians, 
it  seems  to  me  high  time  that  we  look  for  some  other  friend  than  the 
King!  "  These  words  well  expressi^d  the  sentiment  of  the  anti- 
Theban  party  throughout  Hellas.  In  like  spirit  the  Arcadian  am- 
bassador, returning  home  full  of  contempt  for  the  Persian  power, 
reported  to  the  assembly  of  the  Ten  Thousand :  "  The  King  appears 
to  have  a  large  army  of  confectioners  and  pastry  cooks,  butlers  and 
doorkeepers;  but  as  for  men  capable  of  doing  battle  with  the  Hellenes, 
I  looked  carefully  yet  could  discover  none.  Besides  all  this,  even 
the  report  of  his  wealth  seems  bombastic  nonsense.  Why,  the 
golden  plane-tree  so  belauded  is  not  big  enough  to  furnish  shade  to 
a  single  grasshopper."  The  report  was  an  exaggeration,  but  ad- 
mirably expressed  the  liberty-loving  sentiment  of  a  warlike  mountain 
folk  recently  organized  into  a  strong  State. *^° 

Seventh  Peace  Convention,  367-6.  Immediately  a  Seventh 
Peace  Convention,  the  last  in  the  series  under  consideration,  met  at 
Thebes  to  discuss  the  King's  terms.  The  deputies  protested,  how- 
ever, that  they  had  come  to  hear  the  report,  but  had  been  given  no 
instruction  to  ratify  it.  The  Thebans  accordingly  sent  an  embassy 
among  the  other  Greek  States,  with  the  demand  that  they  swear  to 
obey  the  King's  rescript;  for  they  were  convinced  that  no  Hellenic 
State  would  dare  incur  the  enmity  at  once  of  Thebes  and  Persia. 
Corinth,  however,  refused  to  bind  herself  by  oath  to  the  King,  and 
the  other   Greek   States   followed  her  example.^^     Thus   finally  the 

59  Xen.  Hell.  vii.  1.  27;  Diod.  xv.  70.  LG.  ii.  52. 

60  Xen.    Hell.    vii.    i.   38. 

61  Xen.  Hell.  vii.  i.  39  f. 


370  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Persian  King  lost  his  hold  upon  Hellas;  and  the  attempt  of  Pelopidas 
through  negotiation  to  establish  an  empire  for  his  city  proved  a  mere 
cloud-castle.  It  is  more  regrettable  that  the  conventions,  which  had 
promised  not  only  a  Hellenic  but  an  international  peace,  degenerated 
and  died  with  little  fruit. 

Waning  prosperity  of  Thebes;  naval  campaign  of  Epamin- 
ondas,  364.  Meanwhile  Epaminondas  had  been  active.  He  had  in- 
vaded Peloponnese  a  second  and  third  time,  but  as  he  had  accom- 
plished nothing  satisfactory  there,  the  details  of  his  campaigns  may 
be  omitted  here.  Theban  affairs  in  Thessaly  and  Macedon  were 
scarcely  more  prosperous.  The  great  impediment  to  Theban  suprem- 
acy, however,  was  the  Athenian  navy.  Concluding  therefore  that  he 
must  by  all  means  destroy  it,  Epaminondas  built  a  fleet  of  a  hundred 
triremes,  and  in  364  sailed  forth  to  dispute  with  Athens  the  control 
of  the  Aegean.  Fortunately  for  him  the  maritime  States  v^ere  re- 
senting recent  self-aggrandizements  of  Athens,  and  Byzantium  passed 
over  to  him,  while  others  v^avered  in  their  allegiance  to  Athens.  His 
naval  campaign  was  so  great  a  success  that  Thebans  may  well  have 
hoped  in  another  summer  to  drive  Athens  from  the  sea.*'- 

Approaching  the  catastrophe.  The  support  of  a  navy,  however, 
imposed  upon  them  too  great  a  strain  to  be  long  endurable,  especially 
at  a  time  when  their  interests  in  the  peninsula  demanded  their  whole 
attention.  In  the  year  of  the  naval  campaign  Pelopidas  had  to  con- 
duct a  new  Thessalian  campaign,  in  which  he  lost  his  life  in  battle. 
Although  in  the  following  year  all  Thessaly  was  reduced  to  obedi- 
ence, the  Thebans  feared  a  disruption  of  their  own  league.  They 
marched  against  Orchomenus,  whose  people  they  suspected  of  disloy- 
alty, destroyed  the  city,  executed  the  men  as  traitors,  and  enslaved 
the  women  and  children.  The  horror  aroused  through  Greece  by 
this  outrage  foreboded  the  catastrophe  in  the  drama  of  Theban  great- 
ness.*^^ 

An  anti-Theban  coalition.  The  ground  for  this  event  was  pre- 
paring in  Peloponnese  which  had  long  seethed  in  chaos.  In  Arcadia 
a  strong  party,  too  proud  and  too  devoted  to  local  interests  to  submit 

fi2  Athenian  aggressions  were  nearly  of  the  same  nature  as  in  the  preceding  century,  but 
had  not  yet  extended  so  far;  Marshall,  Second  Athenian  Confederacy,  45-50  with  references. 
On  the  Athenian  monopoly  of  red  ochre  produced  in  Ceos,  H.  Civ.  no.  133.  This  docu- 
ment is  evidence  of  a  disposition  to  control  the  trade  of  lesser  allies.  The  naval  cam- 
paign of  Epaminondas;  Aeschines,  F.  Emb.  105;  Aristeides,  Leuctra.  i.  18;  Diod.  xv.  79; 
Isoc.   Phil.   53  (H.   Civ.   p.   416). 

6.3  Expedition  to  Thessaly;  Diod.  xv.  80;  Plut.  Pelop.  31-5.  Destruction  of  Orchomenus; 
Diod.   XV.   79;   Paus.   ix.   15.  •  '       ■         ■  '■ 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         371 

to  Theban  hegemony,  had  split  the  league  in  two  and  were  building 
up  a  great  anti-Theban  coalition.  Mantinea,  with  a  majority  of 
Arcadian  cantons,  joined  with  Elis,  Achaea,  Athens,  Sparta,  and  one 
or  two  lesser  States,  on  equal  terms,  to  prevent  "  the  enslavement  of 
Peloponnese."  '^^  Epaminondas  had  at  his  command,  in  addition  to 
Boeotians,  troops  from  Euboea  and  Thessaly,  and  could  count  upon 
Argos,  Tegea,  and  some  other  Arcadian  communities.  His  hope  was 
that  his  presence  in  the  South  might  win  him  an  overwhelming 
alliance,  so  that  by  peaceful  means  he  could  quiet  the  turmoil  and 
restore  the  ascendancy  of  his  State.  He  attempted  accordingly  in  a 
night  march  to  take  Sparta  by  surprise;  and  failing  in  that  effort,  he 
hurriedly  returned  to  Arcadia,  where  he  tried  to  surprise  the  Manti- 
nean  population  with  their  herds  in  the  fields.  When  this  strategy, 
too,  proved  fruitless,  and  no  hostile  State  came  over  to  his  side, 
nothing  remained  but  to  give  battle. 

The  battle  of  Mantinea,  362.  In  spite  of  forced  marches  his  -y/ 
men  were  in  high  spirits.  "  There  was  no  labor  which  his  troops 
would  shrink  from,  either  by  night  or  by  day.  There  was  no  danger 
they  would  flinch  from;  and  with  the  scantiest  provisions  their  dis- 
cipline never  failed  them.  When  therefore  he  issued  his  last  orders 
to  them  to  prepare  for  battle,  they  promptly  obeyed.  He  gave  the 
word;  the  cavalry  fell  to  whitening  their  helmets,  the  heavy  infantry 
of  the  Arcadians  began  inscribing  clubs  as  a  crest  on  their  shields, 
as  though  they  were  Thebans,  and  all  were  engaged  in  sharpening 
their  lances  and  swords  and  in  polishing  their  heavy  shields."  ^^ 
The  battleground  was  the  plain  of  Mantinea  surrounded  by  lofty 
ranges.  His  enemy  numbered  about  twenty-two  thousand,  his  own 
force  about  thirty-three  thousand.  He  gained  the  advantage,  too,  of 
taking  the  enemy  by  surprise.  The  main  tactic  movement  of  Leuctra 
was  successfully  repeated;  but  the  great  commander  fell  mortally 
wounded,  in  his  last  breath  advising  his  countrymen  to  make  peace. 
His  death  left  the  conflict  undecided."*^  The  situation  before  and 
after  the  battle  is  summarized  by  Xenophon  in  one  of  his  best  pas- 
sages :  — 

Effects  of  the  battle.     "  The  effective  result  of  these  happenings 
was  the  opposite  of  that  which  the  world  at  large  expected.     Here, 

64  Xen.   Hell.  vii.   4;   Diod.   xv.   77  f. 

65  Xen.  Hell.  vii.  5.  19  f.    The  Boeotians  had  long  used  the  club  of  Heracles  as  a  crest. 

66  Xen.    Hell.    vii.    5.    18-27;    Diod.    xv.    8-1-7    (less   trustworthy);    Plut.    Ages.    35;    Nepos, 
Epam.  9;  Justin  vi.  7  f;  Paus.  viii.  II.    The  numbers  are  those  given  by  Diod.  xv.  84.  4. 


372  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

where  well-nigh  the  whole  of  Hellas  was  met  together  in  one  field, 
and  the  combatants  stood  rank  against  rank  confronted,  there  was  no 
one  who  doubted  that,  in  the  event  of  battle,  the  conquerors  this  day 
would  rule,  and  that  those  who  lost  would  be  their  subjects.  But 
God  so  ordered  it  that  both  belligerents  alike  set  up  trophies  as  claim- 
ing victory,  and  neither  interfered  with  the  other  in  the  act.  Both 
parties  alike  gave  back  their  enemy's  dead  under  a  truce,  and  in  right 
of  victory;  both  alike,  in  symbol  of  defeat,  under  a  truce  took  back 
their  dead.  Furthermore  though  both  claimed  to  have  won  the  day, 
neither  could  show  that  he  had  thereby  gained  any  accession  of  ter- 
ritory or  state  or  empire,  or  was  better  situated  than  before  the  battle. 
In  fact  uncertainty  and  confusion  had  gained  ground,  being  tenfold 
greater  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Hellas  after  the  battle 
than  before."  " 

Estimate  of  Epaminondas  and  of  Theban  ascendancy.  Of 
the  brilliant  generalship  of  Epaminondas  there  can  be  no  doubt.  His 
private  character,  too,  was  lovable,  and  in  public  life  he  stood  forth 
an  unselfish  patriot.  Undoubtedly  toward  Hellas  he  cherished  loyal, 
benevolent  feelings.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to  discover  in  him  a 
sign  of  constructive  statesmanship.  As  manifested  by  his  conduct, 
his  single  idea  was  to  substitute  Thebes  for  Sparta  as  the  head  of 
Greece;  and  in  working  to  that  end  he  made  use  of  the  methods  long 
in  vogue.  From  the  beginning  the  task  was  hopeless.  The  Thebans 
were  as  narrow  as  the  Spartans,  and  had  far  less  experience  in  dealing 
with  other  States;  even  in  Boeotia  they  could  maintain  their  control 
in  no  other  way  than  by  a  policy  of  frightfulness.  More  impotent 
were  they  to  win  the  loyalty  of  other  Greeks.  Their  sudden  decline 
after  the  battle  of  Mantinea  proves  that  their  ascendancy  was  largely 
due  to  one  man. 

City-State  supremacy;  the  Hellenic  outlook.  The  idea  of  in- 
stitutional union  of  all  the  Hellenes  on  terms  of  equal  participation 
in  the  central  government,  and  with  guarantees  for  the  rights  of  the 
weaker  states,  probably  no  one  as  yet  had  conceived.  The  city-state 
supremacy  had  been  essentially  a  tyranny,  whether  harsh  or  mild; 
and  it  was  now  at  least  proved  that  no  Hellenic  State  was  strong 
enough  to  force  her  rule  upon  the  rest.  The  disintegration  of  Hellas 
resulting  from  the  downfall  of  Sparta,  the  collapse  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  league,  and  the  rise  and  decline  of  Thebes,  was  exceedingly 

«7  Xen.  Hell.  vii.  5.  26  f. 


THE  LACEDAEMONIAN  EMPIRE— THEBES         373 

discouraging  to  such  men  of  broad  vision  and  liberal  mind  as  Isocra- 
tes.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  chaos  should  last  long  and  wreak 
manifold  injury  upon  the  Greek  world.  For  all  that  it  should  not 
be  hastily  assumed  that  Hellas  was  politically  bankrupt,  that  her  only 
salvation  rested  upon  the  interference  of  an  outsider.  The  Hellenes 
were  still  a  great  creative  people.  Their  expanding  intelligence 
and  liberality,  more  capable  than  ever  of  solving  the  problem  of  unity, 
were  equalled  only  by  their  superb  physical  vitality  and  by  the 
martial  energy  stored  up  in  the  agricultural  areas  of  Greece  —  a  reser- 
voir of  military  strength,  which  if  rightly  applied,  was  capable,  not 
merely  of  protecting  Hellas,  but  of  conquering  and  ruling  an  empire. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  chs.  xii,  xiv;  Grote,  chs.  Ixix-lxxii,  Ixxviii-lxxx;  Beloch  (1st  ed.),  II, 
chs.  ii,  iii,  v-vii;  Meyer,  V,  3-58,  180-496;  Holm,  III,  chs.  i-x;  Cavaignac,  II, 
235-283,  299-333 ;  Glover,  From  Pericles  to  Philip,  chs.  vii,  viii,  xii ;  Freeman, 
History  of  Federal  Government  (2d.  ed.  by  Bury,  London,  1893)  ;  Caldwell, 
Hellenic  Conceptions  of  Peace  (Columbia  University  Studies,  1919),  ch.  iv; 
Phillipson,  International  Law  and  Customs  of  Ancient  Greece  and  Rome; 
Whibley,  Companion,  456-493 ;  Marshall,  Second  Athenian  Confederacy. 


SYRACUSAN  COINS  CARTHAGINIAN  COIN 

CHAPTER  XXII 

SICILY  AND  MAGNA  GRAECIA 
413-338 

Empire-making  in  East  and  West.  The  fate  of  Hellas,  her 
protection  from  foreign  powers  as  well  as  from  internecine  warfare, 
depended  upon  a  political  unification  prejudicial  to  the  sovereignty 
of  the  polls,  and  desired  therefore  neither  by  the  masses  nor  by  the 
great  majority  of  statesmen.  While  in  eastern  Hellas  the  Spartans 
were  engaged  in  a  vain  attempt  to  build  up  and  to  maintain  an  empire 
under  the  supremacy  of  the  city,  an  experiment  at  empire-making  of 
a  wholly  different  character  was  taking  place  in  Sicily  and  southern 
Italy.  It  was  but  natural  that  this  undertaking  should  proceed 
from  Syracuse,  by  far  the  most  powerful  state  in  western  Hellas. 

Syracuse  from  466  to  413.  From  the  overthrow  of  the  tyrants 
in  466  the  government  of  Syracuse  had  been  the  moderate  form  of 
democracy  designated  by  Aristotle  as  a  polity.  Under  this  constitu- 
tion the  victory  over  the  Athenian  besiegers  had  been  won  by  the 
patient  courage  and  the  loyalty  of  the  great  mass  of  citizens  (413). 
It  was  inevitable,  then,  that  they  should  demand  as  a  reward  a 
fuller  participation  in  the  conduct  and  in  the  profits  of  government. 
As  at  Athens  the  failure  of  the  siege  created  an  oligarchy,  in  Syra- 
cuse the  annihilation  of  the  invader  with  equal  logic  changed  the  polity 
to  an  absolute  democracy.^ 

Carthaginian  invasion  of  Sicily,  409.  The  removal  of  the 
Athenian  peril  gave  the  short-sighted  Sicilians  merely  an  opportunity 
for  interstate  warfare,  whilst  they  remained  heedless  of  the  over- 

1  Moderate   democracy,   466-413;    Arist   Polit.    v.    4.    9,    1304   a;    p.    245   above.     Democratic 
legislation  of  412;  Diod.  xiii.  33-5;  of.  Freeman,  Hist,  of  Sicily,  III.  439-44  and  App.  xxvi. 

374 


SICILY  AND  MAGNA  GRAECIA  375 

whelming  power  of  Carthage  at  their  very  doors.  For  seventy  years 
the  terror  of  the  Athenian  navy  had  held  Persia  and  Carthage  alike 
at  bay;  its  collapse  encouraged  both  to  extend  their  pow(^r  to  the 
detriment  of  Hellas.  A  great  fleet  set  sail  from  Carthage  carrying 
to  Sicily  an  army  much  greater  than  Athens  had  brought  to  Syra- 
cuse. It  was  made  up  of  a  Carthaginian  nucleus,  enlarged  by  Libyan, 
Iberian,  and  Campanian  mercenaries.  Even  Greeks  were  willing 
to  serve  Carthage  for  pay  against  their  motherland.  This  force 
captured  Selinus  after  a  fierce  nine  days'  siege.  Whereas  among 
the  Hellenes,  through  their  regard  for  the  lives  of  their  own  soldiers, 
the  besieging  of  cities  was  notably  mild,  it  was  far  different  with 
Carthage,  to  whom  a  few  thousand  mercenaries  counted  as  nothing. 
The  city  was  taken  by  storm  and  the  scene  of  butchery  that  fol- 
lowed is  too  horrible  for  description  in  these  pages.  It  was  the 
first  Sicilian  city  to  be  taken  by  foreigners,  having  enjoyed  two  and 
a  half  centuries  of  freedom.  A  few  days  afterward  Himera  suf- 
fered a  like  fate.  An  attempt  of  Syracuse  to  rescue  the  city  was 
altogether  too  feeble.  Content  with  his  conquest,  Hannibal,  the 
Carthaginian  general,  returned  home  with  his  armament.- 

The  fall  of  Acragas,  406.  The  great  disaster  awakened  western 
Hellas  to  a  sense  of  her  peril.  When  accordingly  Hannibal  returned 
with  a  fresh  armament  to  lay  siege  to  Acragas,  406,  thirty  thousand 
soldiers  from  the  states  of  Sicily  and  southern  Italy  swarmed  into 
Syracuse  to  defend  what  remained  of  Hellenic  soil.  Even  this  con- 
siderable force,  under  the  command  of  the  Syracusan,  Daphnaeus, 
accomplished  nothing  more  than  the  removal  of  the  people  of  Acragas 
before  that  city,  too,  fell  into  the  invaders'  hands.^ 

Usurpation  of  Dionysius,  405.  The  people  of  Syracuse  were 
convinced  that  their  generals  had  failed  through  incompetence  or 
treason.  A  young  officer  named  Dionysius,  taking  advantage  of  this 
feeling,  persuaded  the  assembly  to  depose  the  generals  and  to  elect 
a  new  board,  which  included  himself.  His  next  step  was  by  accus- 
ing his  colleagues  to  have  them  deposed,  so  that  he  became  sole  gen- 
eral. The  deluded  citizens  readily  voted  him  a  personal  guard, 
with  which  he  usurped  the  tyranny  (405).  In  the  face  of  the  ad- 
vancing Carthaginians,  however,  the  despot  could  for  the  moment  ac- 
complish nothing  better  than  his  democratic  predecessors  had  achieved; 

2  Destruction  of  Selinus  and  of  Himera;  Diocl.  xiii.  43-62, 
.3Diod.  xiii,  80-91. 


376  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  people  of  Gela  and  Camarina  were  withdrawn  from  their  cities, 
and  the  entire  southern  coast  was  yielded  to  the  enemy.  All  grum- 
blings at  his  failure  and  mutinyings  of  his  aristocratic  cavalry 
Dionysius  relentlessly  overrode,  with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  a  goal  that 
lay  beyond  the  general  horizon.  To  secure  his  own  hold  on  the 
government  and  his  city  from  the  danger  of  a  siege,  he  came  to  terms 
with  the  enemy.  The  freedom  of  Syracuse  and  a  few  other  Greek 
cities  in  the  east  end  of  the  island  was  purchased  by  the  cession  of 
the  remainder  of  Sicily  to  the  Carthaginians  (405).* 

Dionysius  extends  and  consolidates  his  power.  The  first  ef- 
fort of  Dionysius  was  to  secure  himself  in  power.  With  this  end  in 
view  he  built  on  the  island  of  Ortygia  a  strongly  fortified  castle  and 
surrounded  himself  with  mercenaries,  to  whom  he  granted  the 
dwellings  within  the  island.  These  were  the  properties  of  the  oldest 
and  most  respectable  citizens,  and  in  their  midst  stood  the  most 
venerable  temples,  now  exposed  to  the  insolence  of  strangers.  The 
aristocrats,  thus  expelled  from  their  homes,  were  represented  by  the 
knights,  who  had  arisen  against  him,  only  to  be  slaughtered  or  driven 
into  exile.  Their  country  estates,  too,  were  confiscated,  divided  into 
small  farms,  and  assigned  to  newly  made  citizens,  who  were  either 
alien  mercenaries  or  emancipated  slaves.  To  such  means  tyrants 
had  often  resorted  but  none  had  equalled  the  ruthlessness  of  Diony- 
sius. The  civic  body,  thus  reconstituted,  found  its  only  safety  in 
upholding  the  despot.  In  extending  his  power  by  annexing  the  ter- 
ritory of  neighboring  communities,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  sell  into  slav- 
ery the  population  of  Hellenic  towns,  that  his  Campanian  mercenaries 
might  possess  their  estates.  In  these  measures  he  showed  a  wilful 
harshness  impossible  to  explain,  much  less  to  excuse.  For  a  partial 
understanding  of  his  policy,  however,  we  may  note  that  the  native 
Sicels  and  Italians,  introduced  in  great  numbers  into  his  state,  were 

4  For  Dionysius  we  have  Plato,  Letters,  especially  iii,  vii.  f.,  now  regarded  as  genuine. 
The  chief  source  for  him  and  for  his  son,  Dionysius  II,  was  Philistus.  whose  works  have 
been  lost.  As  a  historian  he  imitated  Thucydides.  He  was  a  Syracusan  and  a  man  of 
wealth  and  of  influence  in  the  state.  Having  aided  the  usurpation  of  Dionysius,  he  flat- 
tered and  upheld  the  tyrant.  His  history  of  the  tyranny  was  therefore  partisan.  It  forms 
a  .sequel  to  a  History  of  Sicily  from  the  earliest  times.  Ephorus,  the  chief  source  for  Dio- 
dorus,  treated  of  the  period  in  his  universal  History  (p.  434),  and  Theopompus,  HeUenica 
gave  more  detailed  attention  to  Sicily  (p.  -434  f.).  Our  only  continuous  extant  narrative  is 
that  of  Diodorus,  compiled  from  contemporary  sources,  to  which  we  must  add  occasional 
references  by  various  authors. —  Usurpation  of  Dionysius;  Diod.  xiii.  91-6;  cf.  Arist.  Polit. 
V.  S.  10,  1305  a.  Desertion  of  Gela  and  Camarina;  Diod.  xiii.  108-11.  Treaty  with 
Carthage;  Diod.  xiii.  114. 


SICILY  AND  MAGNA  GRAECIA  377 

more  amenable  to  military  discipline  and  physically  more  virile  than 
the  Greeks.^ 

Preparations  for  war.  Having  thus  enlarged  and  consolidated 
his  power,  Dionysius  began  military  preparations  on  a  gigantic  scale. 
He  surrounded  Syracuse  and  its  suburbs  with  a  great  wall,  so  that 
it  became  the  largest  and  most  strongly  fortified  city  in  Europe.  He 
built  a  navy  of  more  than  three  hundred  warships,  including  many 
quinqueremes  —  vessels  with  five  banks  of  oars,  invented  by  his 
shipwrights.  For  land  operations  he  filled  his  arsenals  with  muni- 
tions, among  which  were  catapults  for  throwing  stones,  likewise  an 
invention  of  his  engineers.  Hi^  army  of  more  than  80,000  men  was 
splendidly  organized  and  equipped.  It  included  heavy  and  light 
infantry,  artillery  and  cavalry  —  the  largest,  the  most  complex  in 
organization  and  equipment,  ajid  the  mast  efficient  body  of  troops  that 
Hellas  had  thus  far  created.  In  fact  Dionysius  introduced  an  epoch 
in  the  history  of  warfare.® 

First  war  with  Carthage,  397-2.  With  these  magnificent  forces 
he  began  his  first  war  against  the  Carthaginians  with  the  object  of  ex-  ' 
pelling  them  wholly  from  the  island.  But  the  enemy  had  boundless 
resources  in  money  and  therefore  in  mercenaries;  and  the  flow  of 
Syracusan  victory  to  the  extreme  west  of  tlie  island  was  followed  by 
a  return  tide  of  Carthaginian  success,  which  destroyed  Messene  and 
came  near  overwhelming  Syracuse.  Only  her  mighty  walls  saved 
Sicily  from  the  Phoenicians.  After  years  of  hard  fighting  Dionysius 
contented  himself  with  a  peace  that  assured  him  the  greater  part  of 
the  island,  with  the  extreme  west  remaining  in  Carthaginian  hands.' 

Conquests  in  Italy.  Dionysius  was  now  in  a  position  to  inter- 
fere in  the  affairs  of  Italy.  Here  as  in  Sicily  he  displayed  no  scruple 
in  accomplishing  hi-s  ends.  With  the  barbarous  Lucanians,  who 
from  the  interior  we're  rapidly  conquering  the  Hellenic  cities,  he 
gladly  cooperated.  His  share  of  the  conquest  extended  from  the 
strait  to  Croton.  Many  inhabitants  of  this  region  he  sold  into  slav- 
ery; others  he  removed  to  Syracuse,  while  others  were  won  to  his 
cause  by  unexpected  clemency.     The  empire  that  he  built  up  in  Sicily 

■5  Ortygian   castle  and  mercenaries;   Diod.   xiv.   7;   cf.   xvi.   70.    Redistribution  of  lands; 
r)iod.  xiv.  IS. 

6  Diod.  xiv.   41-3. 

7  Diod.  xiv.  45-96 


37S  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  Italy  was  the  strongest  military  power  in  Europe  to  that  day.* 
More  distant  enterprises.  To  his  conquests  he  added  an  extensive 
colonial  policy.  Founding  settlements  on  both  Adriatic  shores,  he 
brought  that  sea  into  his  sphere  of  influence.  His  object  was  partly 
to  facilitate  communications  with  the  Greek  peninsula,  on  which  he 
entertained  political  designs,  and  more  immediately  to  capture  the 
trade  that  poured  into  the  sea  from  central  Europe.  Allying  him- 
self with  the  Gauls,  who  were  invading  Etruria,  he  ravaged  the  coast 
of  that  country,  established  a  naval  base  on  Corsica,  and  occupied 
Elba,  where  doubtless  h£  worked  the  iron  mines.  By  such  means  the 
tyrant  of  Syracuse  encircled  Italy,  possibly  in  the  hope  of  dominating 
the  whole  peninsula.  At  all  events  the  power  of  his  realm  overawed 
the  central  Mediterranean  region  and  came  near  monopolizing  its  com- 
merce.^ Meanwhile  he  entered  into  close  alliance  with  Lacedaemon, 
and  took  an  active  part  in  the  wars  and  diplomacy  of  eastern  Hellas. ^° 
He  waged  other  wars  with  Carthage  but  with  no  further  advantage  to 
the  Hellenic  cause. 

His  government.  The  form  of  government  was  still  republican; 
for  the  council  and  the  popular  assembly  continued  to  meet;  and  the 
tyrant,  avoiding  every  unrepublican  title,  held  the  office  of  general 
with  absolute  command  of  the  army,  while  at  least  in  foreign  rela- 
tions he  was  entitled  archon  of  Sicily.^^  His  wars,  extensive  build- 
ings, and  a  splendid  court  consumed  enormous  sums  of  money,  which 
he  supplied  by  confiscations,  temple  robberies,  the  sale  of  whole 
communities  into  slavery,  the  debasement  of  the  coinage,  and  the 
levy  of  oppressive  taxes  and  arbitrary  exactions  upon  his  subjects.^^ 

His  character.  As  to  the  character  of  this  extraordinary  person 
we  have  few  though  telling  hints.  His  life  was  free  from  the  vices 
that  had  brought  many  a  tyrant  to  ruin.  Particularly  the  citizens 
could  trust  the  honor  of  their  wives  and  daughters  to  his  keeping. 
He  had  simultaneously  t\\x>  wives,  with  both  of  whom  he  lived 
happily.     It  would  be  a  mistake  to  ascribe  his  cruelties  to  cold  blood. 

8  Diod.  xiv.  100-12;  Strabo  vi.  1.  10;  Pliny,  N.  H.  iii.  95;  Dion.  Hil.  xx.  5,  7;  Polyaen. 
vi.    11.     Lucanian  conquests;   Strabo  vi.    1.   1   ff . ;    Aristoxenus,   frag.   90,   in  FHG.   II.   291. 

9  Diod.  XV.  13  f. ;  Pseud.  Scjinnus  431  f . ;  Pseud.  Scylax  24;  Strabo  v.  4.  2;  Pliny.  N.  H. 
iii.  121;  Etym.  Magn.  'Adpias;  Plut.  Dion,  11;  Pseud.  Arist.  Ecoti.  ii,  20,  1349  b;  Arist. 
Polit.  i.   11.   11,   1259  a. 

10  Cf.  p.  440. 

11  Sessions  of  the  as.senibly  are  frequently  mentioned;  cf.  Pseud.  Arist.  Econ.  ii.  20, 
1349  b;  Diod.  xiv.  45,  64  et  pass.  His  treaty  with  Athens,  368-7,  was  signed  by  the  boule 
of  the  Syracufians;   Hicks  and  Hill,  no.   112.     Archon;  H.  Civ.  no.   124. 

12  Devices  for  exacting  money;  Pseud.  Arist.  Econ.  ii.  20,  1349,  and  frequently  in  the 
parts  of  Diodorus  cited  above;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  U.  10,  1313  b.  In  general,  Evans,  in 
Freeman,  Hist,  of  Sicily,  IV.  230-8  (including  lightening  and  debasement  of  coins);  Droy- 
sen,  Kleine  Schriften,  II.  306  ff. ;   Meyer,  Gesch.   d.  Alt.  V.   102-"; 


SICILY  AND  MAGNA  GRAECIA  379 

In  the  hours  that  others  gave  to  wine  or  rest,  Dionysius  composed 
dramas.  Even  his  excuses  for  temple  robberies  display  a  ready 
humor,  whereas  a  curious  sentimental  vein  is  disclosed  in  his  pur- 
chase of  the  writing  tablets  of  Aeschylus  as  a  means  of  inspiration. 
With  an  artistic  temperament  his  conduct  was  swayed,  not  only  by  a 
Napoleonic  ambition,  but  by  friendship,  fear,  jealousy,  and  hatred. 
So  far  as  we  can  judge,  he  was  totally  devoid  of  moral  principle  and 
of  reverence  for  things  sacred.  Although  he  consorted  with  men  of 
ability  in  various  fields,  he  followed  his  own  counsels.  The  Athenian 
philosopher  Plato  came  to  Syracuse  in  the  hope  of  realizing  his  ideal 
State  through  the  power  of  the  despot;  but  in  response  to  his  argu- 
ments the  princely  host  is  said  to  have  had  him  sold  as  a  slave.  In 
brief  Dionysius,  like  Alcibiades  and  Lysander,  was  a  product  of  his 
age  —  a  non-moral,  non-religious  but  otherwise  splendidly  gifted 
egoist. 

The  balance  of  historical  judgment.  As  the  modern  historian 
reviews  the  destruction  of  Hellenic  cities,  the  enslavement  of  entire 
populations,  the  grinding  financial  exajctions,  and  most  of  all,  the 
political  and  mOral  degradation  of  the  free  citizens  under  this  despot- 
ism, he  is  inclined  to  look  upon  Dionysius  as  a  curse  to  humanity. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  picture  is  the  strong  man  who  builds  up  a 
realm  of  civilized  folk  capable  of  defending  themselves  in  perilous 
times  against  the  assaults  of  the  barbarians  in  one  direction  and  of 
Orientals  in  the  other,  when  both  these  enemies  of  European  civiliza- 
tion were  growing  continually  mightier.  Appreciating  the  political 
weaknesses  of  Hellenic  character,  he  tried  to  supplement  it  by  an 
introduction  of  native  Italian  and  Sicel  blood.  Thus  he  was  a 
champion  of  Europeanism  rather  than  of  Hellenism;  and  in  his  ■ 
blending  of  foreigners  with  Greeks  he  stood  forth  as  the  first  Hellen- 
istic prince.  Had  he  been  followed  by  a  line  of  able  successors,  his 
realm  would  have  expanded,  and  have  taken  the  place  of  Rome  as  the 
civilizer  of  the  West.  As  matters  stood,  his  only  service  was  to 
check  the  progress  of  Carthage  till  Rome  grew  sufficiently  strong  to 
protect  Europe  from  the  encroachment  of  Oriental  civilization.^^ 

13  Collection  of  citations  on  his  character;  Holm,  Gesch.  Siziliens,  II.  447-50.  Treatment 
of  Plato;  Died.  xv.  7;  Plut.  Dion,  5  (varying  versions).  As  a  poet;  Diod.  xiv.  109;  xv.  6 
f.,  74;  Cicero,  Tusc.  Disp,  v.  22.  63;  Ad  Att.  iv.  6.  2;  Plut.  Tim.  15;  De  fort.  Al.  ii.  1,  5; 
De  tranquil.  12;  Aelian,  Var.  hist.  xii.  44;  xiii.  18;  Athen.  ix.  65.  Estimate  by  Scipio 
Africanus;  Polyb.  xv.  35.  Grote,  Hist,  of  Greece,  XI,  4.  6  ff.  and  freeman.  Hist,  of 
Sicily,  IV.  209  f.,  239  f.,  condemn  him.  Holm,  Gesch.  Siziliens,  II.  143-56,  finds  little  to 
praise,  whereas  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.  II.  150-78,  and  Meyer,  Gesch.  d.  Alt.  V.  76-132,  497 
f.,  are  eulogistic. 


380  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

As  his  son  and  successor,  Dionysius  II,  was  totally  incapable,  the 
realm  fell  to  pieces.  The  cities  came  under  the  rule  of  petty  ty- 
rants, and  the  power  of  Carthage  threatened  to  overwhelm  the  entire 
island.  Under  these  circumstances  Timoleon  of  Corinth  with  a  few 
hundred  mercenaries  landed-  in  Sicily  for  the  purpose  of  liberating 
Syracuse  (344).  Within  a  few  years  he  expelled  the  tyrants,  and  in 
a  great  victory  drove  the  Carthaginians  into  their  strongholds  on  the 
western  coast.  All  the  cities  were  reorganized  as  moderate  democra- 
cies, in  which  the  people  exercised  the  franchise  while  leaving  the 
executive  strong.  A  federation  of  the  Hellenic  cities  provided  for 
defence  against  internal  and  foreign  enemies.  Colonies  from  older 
Hellas  made  good  the  depopulation  caused  by  war,  and  an  era  of 
material  prosperity  began.  These  achievements  of  Timoleon,  un- 
selfishly wrought  and  leading  to  universal  good  feeling,  serve  to  deepen 
the  shadow  upon  the  tyranny  of  the  elder  Dionysius.  Unfortunately 
the  idyllic  peace  created  by  the  Liberator  was  to  prove  even  more 
fleeting  than  that  earlier  security  under  the  Despot's  galling  yoke.^* 

14  Dionysius    II   and   his   times;    Diod.    xv.    74   ff . ;    Plut.    Dion;   Timoleon;    Plut.    Timo- 
leon; Nepos,    Timoleon;   Diod.    xvi.    65-90.     Depreciated    by   Polyb.    xii.    23. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  ch.  xv;  Grote,  chs.  Ixxxi-lxxxv;  Beloch  (1st  ed.),  II,  ch.  iv;  Holm,  III, 

chs.  xi,  xxviii ;  Holm,  Geschichte  Siziliens,  II ;  Freeman,  History  of  Sicily,  III, 

ch.  viii,  §§5-8,  IV,  chs.  x,  xi;  Meyer,  V,  58-179,  497  to  end  of  vol.;  Cavaignac, 
II,  285-298. 


DEMOSTHENES 
(Capitoline  Museum,  Rome) 

CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  RISE  OF  MACEDON 


To  337 

Country  and  people.  Macedon  consisted  of  a  narrow  plain 
bordering  the  sea  and  a  hill  country  in  the  interior.  The  Athenians 
had  taken  possession  of  the  coast,  and  had  cut  the  country  off  from 
maritime  communications  with  the  world.  The  uplands  were  cov- 
ered with  forests,  the  abode  of  the  wild  boar  and  the  lion.  The  in- 
habitants were  either  Greeks  related  to  the  Thessalians  or  perhaps 
an  Indo-European  people  of  kindred  speech,  who  in  early  time  had 
borrowed  an  extensive  vocabulary  from  the  Thessalians.  It  was 
probably  because  their  dialect  was  foreign  and  their  civilization 
backward  that  the  Hellenes  of  the  fourth  century  pronounced  them 
"  barbarians."  ^     For  subsistence  they  hunted  wild  beasts,  gathered 

1  Modern  scholars  differ  totally  as  to  their  nationality.  For  example,  Hoffman,  O.,  Die 
Makedonen,  ihre  Sprachc  und  ihr  Volkstum  (Gottingen,  1906),  especially  111-15,  declares 
for  their  Greek  nationality,  whereas  Thumb,  A.,  another  eminent  specialist  in  the  Greek 
dialects,  N.  Jahrb.  XIX  (1907).  76-8,  objects.  The  Greeks  regarded  the  Macedonians  as 
foreigners  (barbarians);  Sophist  of  Larisa,  22,  34  (H.  Civ.  p.  382,  384);  Isoc.  Phil.  108  (H. 
Civ.  p.  418).  The  same  view  is  implied  in  the  myth  that  the  kings  of  Macedon  were 
Greek,  of   Argive  descent;   Hdt.   viii.    137-9;   Thuc.    ii.   99;   v.   80;    Isoc.   Phil.   32   (H.   Civ- 


382  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

nuts  and  forest  fruits,  pastured  a  few  sheep,  or  cultivated  small 
patches  of  ground.  They  lived  in  hovels  grouped  in  small  villages, 
dressed  in  skins  or  in  coarsely  woven  cloth,  and  carried  ever  with 
them  weapons  for  protection  from  the  neighboring  barbarians  or  for 
mutual  slaughter  in  their  drunken  brawls.  Although  the  majority 
were  free,  some  were  evidently  the  clients  of  great  lords,  who  pos- 
sessed large  tracts  of  land,  and  served  in  war  as  "  companions  "  of 
their  king.- 

Early  political  condition  and  history,  to  359.  The  uplands 
comprised  several  broad  river  valleys  separated  by  high  ridges.  Each 
valley  was  the  abode  of  a  tribe  under  its  chief.  Similarly  the  long 
narrow  plain  which  lay  between  the  highland  and  the  coast  possessions 
of  Athens  had  its  king.  The  earlier  history  of  Macedon  hinges  on 
the  conflict  between  plain  and  highland.  The  chiefs  of  the  interior 
owed  an  unwilling  allegiance  to  the  king  of  the  plain,  submitted  to 
if  he  were  strong  but  denied  to  the  weakling;  hence  there  were  con- 
stant revolts  and  reconquests.  Gradually  the  king  introduced  among 
his  people  Hellenic  civilization  and  military  equipment,  by  means  of 
which  he  gained  the  mastery  over  the  upland.  The  work  of  reducing 
Macedon  to  unity  belonged  chiefly  to  King  Amyntas,  390-369.  His 
reign  was  full  of  strife  and  anarchy,  intrigue  and  murder.  At  one 
time  the  Illyrians  drove  him  from  the  realm ;  and  again  the  Olynthian 
confederacy  robbed  him  of  his  possessions  near  the  sea;  but  after  its 
fall,  379,  the  Macedonian  king  for  the  first  time  could  reasonably 
hope  to  acquire  a  seaboard.  Death  at  an  advanced  age  snatched 
from  him  this  opportunity.  With  a  talent  for  governmental  business 
and  accomplished  as  a  general,  he  had  spent  his  life,  sword  in  hand, 
interminably  battling  with  Olynthians,  or  with  the  savage  Illyrians 
and  Paeonians,  repressing  rebellions  in  his  upper  feudatories,  or 
stamping  out  disaffection  in  his  own  household.^  Three  lawful  sons 
were  left  —  Alexander,  Perdiccas,  and  Philip  —  all  destined  to  roy- 
alty and  to  violent  deaths.     After  his  two  elder  brothers  had  fulfilled 

413  and  n.  2).  If  the  Macedonians  were  not  Greeks,  we  may  suppose  them  to  have  been 
largely  Hellenized   in  speech   by  an  extensive   immigration  of  Thessalians. 

2  Vegetation  of  Macedoii;  Theophrastus,  History  of  Plants,  iii.  3.  1.  Social  conditions; 
Theopompus,  FHC.  I.  320,  249;  Arrian  i.  16.  4;  vii.  9  (H.  Civ.  no.  168);  Lucian,  Dialogues 
of  the  Dead,   14. 

3  A  few  facts  relating  to  the  early  history  of  Macedon  may  be  gathered  from  Herodotus 
and  Thucydides  (see  indices).  Hellenization  by  King  Archelaus;  Thuc.  ii.  100;  Diod.  xvii. 
16.  3  f. ;  Arrian,  i.  11.  1;  King  Amyntas;  Aelian,  Var.  hist.  xiii.  4;  xiv.  17;  Diod.  xiv.  92. 
3;  XV.  19.  2;  Xen.  Hell.  v.  2.  13;  Justin  vii.  4. 


THE  RISE  OF  MACEDON  383 

their  brief  careers,  Philip  mounted  a  throne  overshadowed  by  internal 
dissensions  and  foreign  war,  359.* 

Philip  in  Thebes,  368-5.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  Philip  had  been 
sent  as  a  hostage  to  Thebes,  where  he  remained  three  years.  This 
sojourn  may  well  be  compared  with  that  of  Peter  the  Great  in  Hol- 
land and  England.  In  spite  of  the  infiltration  of  Hellenic  culture 
the  Macedonians  were  as  yet  barbarians  with  but  a  veneer  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  Philip  had  inherited  the  savage  appetities  and  passions 
of  his  royal  ancestors.  His  long  stay  in  Thebes,  at  that  time  the 
military  and  political  centre  of  Hellas,  was  an  education  of  the  high- 
est type.  The  schools  and  gymnasia,  the  armories  and  arsenals,  the 
splendid  Boeotian  phalangites,  Epaminondas  and  his  brilliant  as- 
sociates, all  served  him  as  models  and  as  an  inspiration,  to  make  his 
own  country  a  state  of  the  Hellenic  type  and  to  win  for  himself  a  place 
among  these  men  of  superior  breeding  and  intelligence.^ 

The  mines  and  the  army.  With  a  quick  mind  and  strong  hand 
he  put  an  end  to  anarchy  within  his  borders,  and  inspired  turbulent 
neighbors  with  respect  for  his  power.  Aside  from  his  own  inborn 
ability  perhaps  the  greatest  element  of  success  in  his  career  was  his 
seizure  of  the  gold  mines  of  Mount  Pangaeus  just  beyond  the  Thra- 
cian  border,  which  according  to  reports  brought  him  more  than  a 
thousand  talents  a  year.  Although  this  statement  may  be  an  exag- 
geration, yet  the  proceeds  constituted  the  foundation  of  his  power,  as 
it  enabled  him  to  create  a  standing  army  of  professional  soldiers, 
superior  to  anything  heretofore  known  to  the  world.  From  the  peas- 
ants and  the  shepherds,  who  were  excellent  fighting  material,  he  se- 
lected the  best,  and  formed  them  in  a  phalanx.  These  "  foot-com- 
panions," as  they  were  honorably  named,  he  armed  more  lightly  than 
the  ordinary  phalangite,  but  increased  the  length  of  their  spears.  In 
equipment  they  somewhat  resembled  the  peltasts  of  Iphicrates. 
They  were  given  mobility  by  an  increase  of  space  between  man  and 
man.  As  auxiliaries  to  the  phalanx  Philip  added  archers  and  slingers 
and  a  body  of  mercenaries.     The  cavalry  were  equipped  as  light  and 

4  The  reign  of  Philip  was  covered  by  Ephorus,  History,  and  far  more  minutely  by 
Theopompus,  Philippica,  both  of  which  are  lost  (p.  434).  Diodorus  xvi,  drawn  mainly 
from  these  sources,  is  our  only  continuous  narrative.  Brief  references  are  given  by  Plu- 
tarch, Pelopidas;  Demosthenes;  Pliocioii.  See  further  Justin  vii-ix,  a  late  and  inferior 
epitome  of  Pompeius  Trogus,  Historiae  Philippicae,  a  meritorious  work  composed  in  the 
time  of  Augustus;  Schubart,  Quellen  zur  Geschichte  Philipps  II  von.  Makedonien  (1904). 
Philip's  accession;   Diod.   xvi.   2. 

5  Plut.  Pelop.  26;   Justin  vii.  5. 


384  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

heavy;  and  in  the  latter  the  nobles  served  as  "  companions  "  of  the 
king.  Philip  not  only  drilled  these  troops,  but  exercised  them  in  long 
rapid  marches,  carrying  their  arms  and  provisions.  They  were  kept 
under  rigid  discipline,  and  encouraged  to  athletic  competitions  by 
prizes  for  winners.  To  this  fighting  machine  he  was  able,  when 
occasion  demanded,  to  attach  an  efficient  siege  train.  Thus  Philip 
developed  a  military  system  even  more  complex  and  more  efficient 
than  that  of  Dionysius  I.  Its  superiority  consisted  mainly  in  the 
soldierly  qualities  of  the  men,  the  professional  efficiency  which  they 
acquired  through  long  service,  and  the  ability  of  the  commander 
and  his  generals.  Lacedaemon  had  long  possessed  a  standing  army, 
but  its  numbers  were  small  compared  with  Philip's  force  and  it  was 
notably  weak  not  only  in  light  troops,  cavalry,  and  siege  equipment 
but  in  mobility  —  all  of  which  qualities  were  the  very  essence  of 
Philip's  strength." 

His  diplomacy.  The  king's  gold  formed,  too,  an  essential  ele- 
ment of  the  diplomacy  in  which  he  developed  a  masterful  skill. 
Through  ability  to  buy  friends  and  reward  his  faithful  henchmen, 
as  well  as  through  urbanity,  good-fellowship,  and  general  adroitness 
in  the  management  of  men,  he  created  in  every  Hellenic  State  a 
party  devoted  to  his  cause.  States  whose  interests  were  threatened 
by  his  aggressions  he  could  usually  lull  to  a  sense  of  security  till  the 
time  was  ripe  for  striking  the  fatal  blow.  No  scruple  —  no  lying  or 
truce-breaking  —  stood  in  the  way  of  his  seizing  an  advantage. 

Philip's  early  aggressions,  359-1.  Philip's  determination  to  win 
the  coast  region  adjoining  his  country  conflicted  with  the  interests  of 
the  Olynthian  confederacy  and  of  Athens.  His  characteristic  diplo- 
macy kept  the  former  quiet  while  he  proceeded  to  annex  Amphipolis 
and  other  possessions  of  Athens.  To  check  his  aggressions  that  city 
began  a  war  upon  him  in  357,  which,  though  involving  only  occa- 
sional hostilities,  nominally  continued  eleven  years.  Meanwhile  he 
made  himself  master  of  Thessaly  and  the  greater  part  of  Thrace. 
His  occupation  of  a  long  line  of  coast  added  rich  port  customs  to  his 
revenue,  and  enabled  him  to  build  cruisers  to  prey  upon  Athenian 
commerce.  Athens  was  weakened  by  the  loss  of  her  greater  allies 
in  the  Social  War  (357-355),  and  still  more  by  a  policy  which  de- 

6  The  mines;  Diod.  xvi.  8.  6.    The  army;  Diod.  xvi.  3;  Polyaenus  iv.  2.   1,  3,  6;   Fron- 
tinus  iv.   1.  6;   Delbriick,  Kriegsk.   I.   139-48. 


THE  RISE  OF  MACEDON  385 

voted  a  large  share  of  the  public  revenues  to  the  feeding  and  enter- 
tainment of  the  populace.'^ 

The  first  Philippic  of  Demosthenes,  351,  These  material  en- 
joyments were  disturbed  only  by  the  voice  of  Demosthenes  proclaim- 
ing anew  the  civic  ideals  of  Themistocles  and  Pericles,  which  called 
men  to  sacrifice  and  suffer  for  their  country.  In  his  First  Philippic, 
351,  he  informed  his  countrymen  that  their  enemy  had  grown  great 
through  their  own  sloth,  that  to  check  his  further  aggrandizement 
they  should  act  at  once:  "The  wealthy  should  contribute,  the 
physically  able  should  enlist;  in  a  word,  if  you  will  become  your 
own  masters,  and  cease  each  expecting  to  do  nothing  himself,  while 
his  neighbors  do  everything  for  him,  you  shall  then  with  Heaven's 
permission  recover  your  own,  get  back  what  you  have  frittered  away, 
and  chastise  Philip."  ^  To  send  a  general  off  with  a  few  empty 
ships  and  a  little  money  for  hiring  mercenaries,  as  you  have  often 
done,  he  continues  in  substance,  is  worse  than  useless,  for  the  general 
is  a  slave  to  his  hirelings,  who  merely  prey  upon  your  own  allies. 
Keep  a  small  fleet  cruising  on  the  northern  Aegean,  manned  in  part  by 
citizens,  to  protect  our  remaining  allies  and  to  harass  the  enemy. 
"  You,  Athenians,"  he  exclaims,  "  with  larger  means  than  any  other 
people  —  ships,  infantry,  and  income  —  have  never  up  to  this  day 
made  proper  use  of  any  of  them."  ^  The  speaker  proposes  a  well- 
considered  plan  of  an  armament,  including  the  financial  support, 
which  to  his  country  would  have  been  a  mere  trifle.  He  was  still 
young,  however,  and  his  words  carried  little  weight.  Nothing  was 
done  on  that  occasion,  and  Philip  continued  to  gain  ground. 

Conquest  of  the  Olynthian  confederacy,  349-8.  Two  years  later,  ^ 
after  demoralizing  the  Chalcidic  cities  with  bribes,  Philip  entered 
openly  upon  their  conquest.  Appeals  to  Athens  for  help  were  sup- 
ported by  the  eloquence  of  Demosthenes  in  his  three  Olynthiac  Ora- 
tions. The  spirit  of  these  addresses  is  like  that  of  the  First  Philippic 
described  above.  His  countrymen  should  grasp  this  God-given  op- 
portunity to  join  with  the  Olynthians  in  putting  down  the  common 

7  Philip  made  a  treaty  with  Athens  in  which  he  agreed  to  dehver  Amphipolis  to  her 
but  afterwards  broke  his  promise;  Diod.  xvi.  3  f.,  8;  Theopompus,  in  FHG.  285.  310 
Demosth.  Olynth.  ii.  6  f . ;  cf.  i.  8.  Taking  of  AmphipoHs  and  banishment  of  friends  of 
Athens;  H.  Civ.  no.  125.  War  between  Athens  and  Phihp;  Diod.  xvi.  8  ff . ;  Demosth. 
Philippics  and  Olynthiacs.  Athenian  combinations  against  Philip;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no. 
131  f. ;  Ditt.  .1.  no.  196  f.  Social  war;  Diod.  xvi.  7-22;  Hicks  and  Hill,  nos.  128,  130;  Ditt.  I. 
nos,   190-92  (documents).    Socialistic  policy  of  Athens;   p.   420  f.  below. 

8  Demosth.   Phil.   i.    7. 

9  Phil.  i.  40.  --.■. 


386  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

enemy  of  Hellas,  an  enemy  steadily  advancing  toward  Athens.  It 
is  better  to  fight  him  at  a  distance  than  to  see  the  ruin  of  our  farms, 
to  join  at  once  with  our  allies  and  with  his  disaffected  subjects  than 
later  to  bear  the  whole  brunt  alone.  His  power  is  indeed  formidable, 
as  other  speakers  have  shown,  but  it  rests  upon  a  weak  foundation, 
on  unrighteousness,  perjury,  and  falsehood,  and  will  fall  if  we  strike 
hard.  Far  from  losing  himself  in  eloquent  generalities,  the  young 
statesman  had  a  definite  plan  to  propose,  as  on  other  occasions,  worked 
out  in  minute  detail.  If  the  citizens  were  to  receive  money  from  the 
state,  he  maintains,  they  should  earn  it  by  labor  —  the  young  men  by 
military  duty,  the  elders  by  service  at  home.^*^  This  appeal  for  pub- 
lic efficiency  fell  on  deaf  ears.  Inadequate  and  tardy  help  was  sent. 
The  Confederacy  fell.  Of  the  thirty-two  cities  which  composed  it  a 
few  only  were  spared  and  were  admitted  to  the  Macedonian  state  on 
an  equality  with  the  neighboring  towns.  The  rest  were  destroyed, 
and  the  inhabitants  enslaved.  Philip's  friends  throughout  Hellas 
were  favored  with  gifts  from  these  human  spoils.  An  Athenian  met  a 
certain  man  of  Arcadia  driving  homeward  a  herd  of  thirty  Olynthian 
women  and  children  whom  he  had  received  as  a  present  from  his 
friend  the  king.  The  Athenian  wept  at  the  sight  and  bewailed  the 
abject  state  of  Hellas  that  could  endure  such  pitiable  scenes.^^ 

At  length  it  was  clear  even  to  the  average  statesman  that  Hellas 
had  a  master,  whose  policy  toward  the  Greeks  was  not  only  intrigue, 
insinuation,  and  bribery,  but  likewise  blood  and  iron.  His  direct 
sway  extended  from  the  Hellespont  to  Thermopylae;  and  many  a  city 
farther  south  was  controlled  by  his  paid  henchmen. 

The  Sacred  War,  beginning  356.  For  some  time  Philip  had 
been  involved  in  the  so-called  Sacred  War,  which  had  broken  out  in 
356.  During  her  supremacy  Thebes  had  control  of  the  Delphic 
amphictyony,  and  used  this  power  against  her  enemies.  It  was 
through  her  influence,  for  example,  that  the  amphictyonic  council  had 
fined   Sparta   five   hundred   talents   for  having    seized    the   Theban 

10  Under  a  treaty  with  Philip  of  about  356  the  Olynthian  confederacy  had  aided  him  in 

a  war  against  Athens  and  had  received  a  share  of  the  conquered  territory;  Demosth. 
Aristoc.  108;  Phil.  ii.  20.  Afterward  when  the  Olynthians  began  to  suspect  him,  they 
made  a  treaty  with  Athens,  353-2;  Demosth.  Aristoc.  107  ff . ;  Ol.  iii.  7;  IG.  II.  105  f.  Phil- 
ip's deception  and  bribery  of  Olynthians;  Demosth.  F.  Emb.  265;  Phil.  iii.  56,  63-8.  Pro- 
posal that  youths  and  elders  should  serve  the  State;  Demosth.  Ol.  iii.  3^  f.  Athenian  naval 
power,  in  353-2  a  fleet  of  350  triremes;  IG.  II.  795. 

11  Fall  of  the  Chalcidic  confederacy,  348;  Diod.  xvi.  53;  Philochorus,  FUG.  I.  405.  132. 
Certain  places  spared;  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.  II.  505,  n.  1.  Destruction  of  thirty-two 
(Demosth.  Phil.  iii.  26)  is  slightly  exaggerated.  Refugees  harbored  by  .Athens;  Hicks  and 
Hill,  no.  141.  Honors  to  Philip;  Demosth.  Phil.  iii.  32;  Peace,  22.  His  fame;  Theopomp. 
before  he  became  a  partisan  of  Philip;  Demosth.  F.  Emb.  305  f. 


THE  RISE  OF  MACEDON  387 

Cadmea  in  time  of  peace.  This  sum  was  never  paid.  In  like  man- 
ner as  Phocis  was  disinclined  to  bear  the  Theban  supremacy,  the 
council  proceeded  to  fine  some  of  her  leading  men  for  alleged  tres- 
passing upon  the  property  of  Apollo.  On  tlie  refusal  of  the  accused 
to  pay  the  fines,  the  council  declared  a  Sacred  War  upon  their  coun- 
try. The  Phocian  commander  seized  the  treasury  at  Delphi,  with 
which  he  hired  a  great  force  of  mercenaries.  Thus  provided,  he 
was  able  to  make  headway  against  the  Boeotians,  to  carry  the  war  into 
Thessaly,  and  to  contend  with  Philip.  Ultimately  the  Macedonian 
king  defeated  the  invaders  and  expelled  them  from  Thessaly.  Hel- 
lenic sentiment  disapproved  of  their  seizure  of  the  Delphic  treasury; 
and  though  both  Athenians  and  Lacedaemonians  were  their  allies, 
neither  gave  material  aid.  The  exhaustion  of  the  sacred  fund  was 
sure  to  bring  the  downfall  and  punishment  of  the  Phocians.^- 

The  treaty  of  Philocrates,  346.  Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs 
in  348,  when  the  Chalcidic  cities  were  destroyed.  Athens  was  con- 
tending alone  against  Philip,  and  always  losing.  There  was  no  hope 
of  success,  and  hence  no  reason  for  prolonging  the  struggle.  Nego- 
tiations ended  in  the  peace  of  Philocrates,  346,  so-named  after  the 
Athenian  who  proposed  it.  The  treaty  established  not  only  peace  but 
a  defensive  alliance.  It  was  acknowledged  that  the  status  quo  ex- 
tended to  the  allies  of  both  parties  with  the  exception  of  the  Phocians. 
Accepting  the  inevitable,  Demosthenes  had  worked  for  the  peace.  The 
Athenians  voted  for  it,  however,  under  the  strange  delusion  that 
Philip  intended  to  spare  Phocis  and  to  attack  the  Thebans.^^ 

Devastation  of  Phocis.  The  men  of  Athens  were  not  long  kept  in 
the  dark  as  to  tlie  fate  of  the  Phocians.  The  amphictyonic  council 
had  invited  Philip  to  put  an  end  to  the  Sacred  War,  and  he  was 
now  in  a  position  to  accept.  The  helpless  Phocians  yielded  uncon- 
ditionally. Their  towns  were  destroyed  and  they  were  scattered  in 
villages.  They  were  compelled  further  by  an  annual  tribute  of  sixty 
talents  to  replace  the  plundered  treasure.  To  see  that  these  measures 
were  carried  out  the  king  quartered  troops  on  the  country.  Its  con- 
dition, as  Demosthenes  saw  it  shortly  afterward,  was  pitiable:  "  The 
ruin  that  has  fallen  on  the  poor  Phocians  may  be  seen  .  .  .  from  what 
has  actually   been   done  —  a   shocking   and  pitiable   sight,   men   of 

12  Sparta  fined;  Diod.  xvi.  23.     Sacred  War;  Diod.  xvi.  23,  32;  Paus.  x.  2;   Justin  viii.   1. 

13  The  chief  sources  for  the  peace  and  the  negotiations  connected  with  it  are  the  speeches 
of  Demosthenes  and  Aeschines,  On  the  Faithless  Embassy,  and  Pseudo-Demosthenes,  On 
Halonnesus. 


>' 


388  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Athens.  On  our  journey  to  Delphi  we  were  forced  to  see  it  all  — 
houses  razed  to  the  ground,  walls  demolished,  a  country  stripped  of 
its  adult  male  population,  a  few  women  and  little  children,  and  mis- 
erable old  men.  No  language  can  equal  the  wretchedness  now  exist- 
ing there."  ^■^  The  Phocians  were  excluded  from  the  amphictyony 
and  their  two  votes  were  transferred  to  Philip  and  his  descendants. 
The  man  whom  patriot  Greeks  had  scoffed  at  as  a  barbarian  and 
drunkard,  a  boon  companion  of  the  off-scourings  of  society,  was  thus 
publicly  acknowledged  as  a  Hellene,  and  was  given  the  presidency 
of  the  Pythian  games  held  that  autumn.  He  was  now  the  arbiter  of 
Greek  affairs,  and  his  name  in  flattery  or  execration  was  on  every 
man's  lips.^^ 

Philip's  larger  ambition  and  its  obstacle  in  Athens.  About  this 
time  Philip  began  to  think  of  making  war  upon  Persia.  With  this 
end  in  view  he  desired  the  peace  and  the  good  will  of  the  Hellenes 
and  his  own  election  to  the  chief  command.  As  a  strong  navy  would 
be  indispensable,  he  especially  courted  the  friendship  of  Athens. 
His  advances  in  the  latter  direction  were  repelled.  Shocked  at  the 
ruin  of  the  Phocians,  the  Athenians  burned  for  a  renewal  of  hostili- 
ties, and  were  restrained  with  great  difficulty  by  Uemothenes.^"  They 
considered  the  treaty  of  Philocrates  a  disgrace  to  themselves,  and  al- 
lowed its  author  to  be  driven  by  prosecution  into  exile.  Demosthenes 
brought  Aeschines,  a  rival  orator,  to  trial  on  the  charge  of  having 
bartered  to  Philip  the  interests  of  Athens.  This  misconduct,  the 
prosecutor  alleged,  was  on  the  occasion  of  the  embassies  to  Philip 
connected  with  the  recent  treaty,  in  which  both  Aeschines  and  Demos- 
thenes had  taken  part.  The  speeches  of  these  adversaries  at  the  trial, 
343,  are  a  hopeless  maze  of  contradictions;  neither  antagonist  seems 
to  have  hesitated  at  falsehood.  Aeschines  was  acquitted  by  only  thirty 
votes.  Against  him  it  must  at  least  be  said  that  from  the  bitterest 
opponent  of  Philip  he  was  suddenly  converted,  in  the  embassy  pre- 
ceding the  peace,  into  an  ardent  champion;  and  it  is  not  improbable 
that  he  and  Philocrates  had  received  from  Philip  estates  in  the  con- 
quered territory  of  Olynthus.  Be  that  as  it  may,  Philip's  friends  at 
Athens  were  at  length  in  disrepute;  the  popularity  of  Demosthenes, 

14  Demosth.   F.  Emb.  63. 

15  Punishment  of  the  Phocians;  Diod.  xvi.  56,  60;  Paus.  x.  3;  Demosth.  F.  Emb.  81. 
The  total  amount  to  be  refunded  exceeded  10.000  talents.  Record  of  a  payment;  flicks  and 
Hill,  no.  141.  Honors  to  Philip;  Demosth.  Phil.  iii.  32;  Peace,  22.  His  fame;  Theopomp. 
FHG.  I.   317.  235. 

H!  Philip's  designs  against  Persia;  Diod.  xvi.  60.  5;  cf.  Isocrates,  Philippus  (composed 
346).     Athenians  restrained   by  Demosthenes,   On  the  Peace. 


THE  RISE  OF  MACEDON  389 

and  with  it  the  strength  of  the  anti-Macedonian  party,  grew  from 
day  to  day.^'  These  men  looked  upon  the  peace  merely  as  a  breath- 
ing time,  on  Philip  as  an  enemy  at  heart,  who  when  the  opportune 
moment  should  come,  would  treat  Athens  as  he  had  treated  Olynthus. 
Under  the  lead  of  Demosthenes  therefore  they  seized  every  oppor- 
tunity to  hamper  the  further  extension  of  his  power. 

Philip  in  Epirus  and  Peloponnese;  a  new  Hellenic  Federation. 
Meanwhile  Philip  placed  his  brother-in-law  Alexander  on  the  throne 
of  Epirus,  strengthened  his  hold  upon  Thrace  and  Thessaly,  and  by 
his  characteristic  methods  gained  an  ascendancy  in  Peloponnese. 
Athens,  on  the  other  hand,  won  for  herself  a  considerable  federa- 
tion, including  Euboea,  Megara,  Corinth,  Achaea,  Acarnania,  Leucas, 
Phocis,  and  lastly  Thebes,  still  the  most  powerful  city-state  on  the 
peninsula.  Since  the  battle  of  Mantinea,  362,  had  put  an  end  to 
city-supremacy,  its  place  was  filled  by  the  principle  of  the  balance  of 
power.  In  the  new  political  system  the  object  of  the  statesman  was 
to  prevent  any  one  of  the  greater  city-states  —  Thebes,  Athens,  Lace- 
daemon,  and  Argos  —  from  growing  so  powerful  as  to  menace  the 
liberties  of  the  rest.  From  the  beginning  of  his  public  career  Demos- 
thenes consistently  upheld  this  principle.  In  his  judgment  Athens 
should  protect  the  weaker  States  and  should  refrain  from  exercising 
compulsion  toward  any  of  them.  She  should  make  of  herself  an 
efficient  military  power,  so  as  to  be  ready  to  accept  the  leadership  when 
voluntarily  tendered  by  Hellas.^ ^  The  federation  of  Hellenes  men- 
tioned above  was  largely  his  work;  and  the  union  between  Athens 
and  Thebes,,  the  leading  powers  in  eastern  Hellas,  who  had  long 
cherished  toward  each  other  the  bitterest  hatred,  was  a  great  achieve- 
ment of  statesmanship,  as  it  formed  an  important  step  toward  Hellenic 
unity. 

Battle  of  Chaeronea,  338.  For  the  success  of  this  policy  time  was 
lacking.  Unfortunately  for  the  Hellenic  cause  a  Sacred  War  had 
again   been   declared   for  alleged   trespassing   upon   the  property   of 

17  Philocrates  fled  into  exile  and  was  thereupon  condemned  to  death;  Hypereides,  For 
Euxenippus,  29  f . ;  Demosth.  F.  Emb.  114  ff. ;  Aeschines,  F.  Emb.  6.  Prosecution  of 
Aeschines;  speeches  of  Demosthenes  and  Aeschines,  On  the  Faithless  Embassy,  as  edited 
after  the  delivery  by  the  authors.  Gifts  of  Olynthian  estates;  Demosth.  F.  Emb._  145  f. 
The  part  of  Demosthenes,  too,  in  the  negotiations  is  in  some  respects  open  to  criticism, 
but  in  his  case  there  is  no  suspicion  of  corruption  or  of  disloyalty  to  Athens.  Next  to 
Demosthenes  the  strongest  anti-Macedonians  were  Hypereides,  the  prosecutor  of  Philocrates, 
and  Lycurgus;   p.   436  below. 

18  This  policy  we  find  well  developed  in  his  early  public  career,  as  represented  by  his 
speeches  On  the  Symmories ;  For  the  Megalopolitans ;  and  For  the  Rhodians.  Like  other 
statesmen  Demosthenes  undoubtedly  made  mistakes,  but  his  policy  accorded  well  with  the 
political  conditions  of  Hellas,  and  met  with  as  much  success  under  existing  circumstances 
as  could  be  expected  in  so  short  a  time. 


390  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Apollo  —  on  this  occasion  against  the  little  town  of  Amphissa,  Locris; 
and  Philip  had  been  invited  by  the  amphictyons  to  take  the  cap- 
taincy. A  clash  with  the  federals  was  inevitable.  In  the  battle  of 
Chaeronea,  Boeotia,  he  routed  their  forces.  As  further  resistance 
seemed  hopeless,  the  federation  dissolved  and  Philip  was  left  free  to 
organize  Greece  according  to  hi^  pleasure.  Sparta  alone  held  out. 
Philip  ravaged  her  country,  and  trimmed  off  a  wide  strip  of  territory 
on  the  east,  north  and  west,  but  failed  to  conquer  the  state.'^^ 

Philip's  treatment  of  Thebes  and  of  Athens;  his  garrisons. 
In  meting  out  punishment  Philip  was  most  severe  upon  Thebes,  which 
had  been  most  subservient  to  him  but  had  deserted  at  the  last  hour. 
She  lost  her  hegemony  over  Boeotia;  the  leaders  in  the  revolt  who 
failed  to  escape  were  put  to  death;  and  a  garrison  was  placed  in  the 
Cadmea.  Philip  found  it  advisable  likewise  tq  garrison  Chalcis  and 
Corinth.  Athens,  on  the  other  hand,  which  had  opposed  him  most 
consistently,  received  unexpected  favors.  This  city  still  commanded 
the  sea;  and  Philip  could  not  risk  a  long  and  uncertain  siege,  espe- 
cially as  Athens  might  be  able  to  bring  Persia  and  many  Greek 
States  to  her  support.  In  his  plans  for  the  future,  too,  the  coopera- 
tion of  Athens  was  necessary.  The  king  therefore  freed  the  Athenian 
prisoners  without  ransom,  and  left  the  city  her  constitution  and  her 
territory,  including  the  islands  settled  by  her  colonists.  She  had  to 
give  up  the  Thracian  Chersonese,  but  received  in  exchange  the  Boeo- 
tian Oropus.  No  foreign  troops  crossed  her  border,  and  none  of  her 
statesmen  were  touched. "° 

Philip's  Hellenic  league,  winter  of  338-7.  Philip  then  pro- 
ceeded to  the  organization  of  Hellas.  On  his  invitation  all  the  States 
of  the  peninsula,  excepting  Lacedaemon,  and  of  the  islands  round 
about  sent  deputies  to  a  Hellenic  congress  at  Corinth.  The  States 
were  represented,  as  in  the  Boeotian  league,  according  to  population. 
The  constitution  of  the  new  union  was  incorporated  in  a  treaty  be- 
tween that  body  and  Philip  and  in  the  mutual  oaths  of  the  contracting 
parties,  as  follows:  The  States  shall  be  independent  and  self-govern- 
ing, and  any  who  attempt  to  subvert  the  constitution  existing  at  the 
time  when  the  oaths  are  taken  shall  be  considered  enemies  of  all  who 
share  in  the  treatv.     It  is  further  provided  that  all  the  deputies  and 

19  The  battle;  Diod.  xvi.  85  f . ;  Plut.  Demosth.  17-20;  Alex.  9;  Justin  ix.  3;  Polyaenus 
iv.  2.  2,  7. 

20  Samos,  Lemnos,  Imbros,  and  Scyros  retained;  An'st.  Const.  Ath.  62;  Diod.  xviii,  56; 
Paus.  i.  34.  1.  Delos;  fC.  II.  824.  Peace  favorable  to  Athens;  Plut.  Phocion,  16:  Diod. 
xvi.  8.  3;  Justin  ix.  4.  5. 


THE  RISE  OF  MACEDON  391 

all  who  have  a  care  for  the  public  safety  shall  see  that,  in  the  States 
which  share  in  the  peace,  there  shall  be  no  executions  or  banishments 
contrary  to  the  laws  now  existing  in  the  States,  or  confiscations  of 
property  or  redivisions  of  the  soil  or  abolitions  of  debt  or  emancipa- 
tions of  slaves  for  revolutionary  purposes.  In  case  the  exiles  from 
any  State  attempt  a  forcible  return,  the  State  which  harbors  such 
militant  exiles  shall  be  excluded  from  the  peace.  All  are  at  liberty 
to  navigate  the  sea,  and  the  State  which  infringes  this  right  shall 
be  deemed  a  common  enemy.  The  contracting  States  agree  not  to 
encroach  upon  one  another  in  any  way,  but  faithfully  to  keep  the 
peace.  Between  Philip  and  the  league  there  is  to  be  an  offensive  and 
defensive  alliance.  Philip  is  to  be  the  commander-in-chief.  The 
deputies  pledge  their  States  by  oath  not  to  overthrow  the  kingship  of 
Philip  or  of  his  descendants  but  to  maintain  the  treaty  and  to  wage 
war  upon  any  who  violate  it.  These  arrangements  were  to  be  perma- 
nent. It  was  further  decided  that  Macedon  and  Hellas  should  wage 
jointly  a  war  against  Persia  under  Philip's  command.  The  sum  of 
the  Hellenic  forces  was  reckoned  at  200,000  infantry  and  15,000  cav- 
alry.2^ 

Valuation  of  this  achievement.  In  this  way  was  achieved  a 
unification  of  eastern  Hellas  for  which  the  best  minds  of  the  race 
had  long  been  yearning.  Had  the  Greeks  possessed  sufficient  politi- 
cal experience,  they  would  have  accepted  the  situation,  and  would 
ultimately  have  been  able  to  throw  off  the  Macedonian  supremacy. 
The  centrifugal  tendencies  of  the  cities,  however,  were  still  too  strong 
to  endure  this  forcible  bridling;  so  independent  in  fact  was  the  Greek 
spirit  that  the  coercion  itself  served  as  a  powerful  factor  of  disinte- 
gration. The  large  degree  of  liberty  still  left  to  the  Hellenes  existed 
on  sufferance  only.  Despite  his  benevolence  Philip  was  a  self- 
constituted  despot;  and  the  Greeks,  even  if  they  had  been  willing 
to  submit  to  a  loving  master,  possessed  no  guarantee  for  the  continu- 
ance of  the  good  will.  The  supremacy  of  Macedon  was  an  innova- 
tion upon  that  of  the  city-state  in  two  important  respects:  it  was  the 
rule  (1)  of  a  semi-civilized  people  over  a  highly  cultured  race,  (2) 
of  a  military  power  centralized  in  the  hands  of  a  man  who  in  spite 
of  his  benevolence  to  Hellas  and  his   admiration   for  her  culture, 

21  The  treaty  with  Alexander  was  essentially  the  same  as  that  with  Philip,  and  its 
terms  are  accordingly  best  expressed  in  Pseud.  Demosth.  Treaty  xvith  Alexander,  es- 
pecially, 8,  10,  15  f.,  'IP.  An  important  fragment  of  the  oath;  H.  Civ.  no.  128.  The  war- 
leader  is  hegemon,  ijyefiwv-  Hellenic  forces;  Justin  ix.  5,  the  total  military  strength,  not 
the  forces  to  be  sent  against  Persia. 


392  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

was  essentially  an  egoist.  The  issue  between  Philip  and  the  Hellenes 
is  alive  today;  and  the  historian  who  maintains  that  the  strong  man 
is  justified  in  forcibly  imposing  his  rule  upon  mankind  upholds 
Philip,  whereas  the  believer  in  democracy,  in  the  right  of  the  people 
to  determine  their  own  government,  necessarily  gives  the  greater  share 
of  his  s>Tnpathy  to  the  Hellenes.^-  Their  freedom  was  not  destroyed 
but  merely  abridged  by  the  battle  of  Chaeronea. 

Hellenic  and  modern  history  compared.  In  reviewing  their 
history  to  this  date  the  reader  who  applies  present  standards  to  the 
struggles  among  their  cities  is  tempted  to  regard  their  wars  as  con- 
temptibly petty,  and  to  look  upon  the  Greeks  as  supremely  foolish  in 
clinging  so  tenaciously  to  their  city-states.  This  view,  however,  is 
subject  to  correction  through  a  right  historical  perspective.  The 
great  war  which  began  August  1,  1914,  has  clearly  revealed  the  fact 
that  in  political  wisdom  the  world  has  not  advanced  appreciably  be- 
yond the  Greeks.  By  a  process  of  gradual  growth  rather  than  through 
statesmanship  the  nation  has  been  substituted  for  the  city;  but  to  one 
who  regards  the  situation  without  partisanship  the  antipathies  and 
the  rivalries  among  nations  are  of  the  same  character  as  those  of 
former  time  among  cities,  while  the  wars  between  groups  of  nations 
are  incomparably  more  destructive  to  life  and  property  and  hence 
more  prejudicial  to  civilization.  From  this  point  of  view  the  military 
and  political  strivings  of  the  Greek  republics  are  worthy  of  our  study. 
In  principle  though  not  in  magnitude  they  are  sufficiently  near  to 
modern  conditions  to  afford  us  at  least  an  occasional  lesson  in  politi- 
cal science. 

22  Within  the  past  few  decades  there  has  arisen  a  considerable  class  of  scholars  inter- 
ested in  Greek  conditions  who  are  partisans  of  the  strong-man  theory  as  defined  in  the  text 
above.  Their  treatment  of  fourth-century  history  has  for  its  chief  object  the  justification  of 
Philip  and  Alexander.  For  this  purpose  they  paint  the  social  and  political  conditions  of 
the  time  in  as  repellent  colors  as  possible,  representing  the  Greeks  as  totally  degenerate 
both  politically  and  socially,  capable  of  redemption  in  no  other  way  than  through  subjuga- 
tion by  the  strong  man.  This  accusation  is  refuted  in  the  pertinent  chapters  of  the  present 
volume.  In  the  third  century  the  Greeks  of  their  own  initiative  discovered  a  solution  of 
their  political  difficulties  in  the  federal  union,  too  late,  however,  for  the  preservation  of 
their  independence. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Holm,  ITT,  chs.  xiv-xix;  Bury,  ch.  xvi ;  Grote,  XI,  chs.  Ixxxvi-xc ;  Curtius,  V, 
bk.  vii;  Pohlmann,  Griech.  Gesch.  225-259;  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.  (1st  ed.)  II, 
chs.  xii,  xiii;  Cavaignac,  Histore  de  I'antiquite,  II,  319-349,  391-452;  Glover, 
From  Pericles  to  Philip,  ch.  xii;  Beloch,  Attische  Politik  seit  Periklrs,  162-369; 
Hoffman,  Die  Makedonen,  ihre  Sprache  und  ihr  Volkstum  (Gbttingen,  1906); 
Pickard-Cambridge,  Demosthenes  and  the  Last  Days  of  Greek  Freedom  (Lon- 


THE  RISE  OF  MACEDON 


393 


don,  1914).  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  most  modern  writers  on  this  subject 
may  be  divided  definitely  into  two  classes:  those  who  sympathize  with  Demos- 
thenes, regard  the  Athenian  democracy  as  essentially  sound,  and  dislike  Philip, 
and  those  on  the  other  hand,  who  champion  Philip  and  condemn  both  Demos- 
thenes and  the  Athenian  democracy.  To  the  former  class  belong  Grote,  Curtius, 
Schaefer,  Demosthenes  unci  seine  7,eit  (Teubner,  1885-7);  Blass,  Geschichte 
der  attischen  Beredsatiikeit  (Teubner,  1880)  ;  Weil,  Harangues  de  Demosthen 
(Paris,  1881).  Unfavorable  to  Demosthenes  are  Holm  and  Beloch.  In  English 
Hogarth,  Philip  and  Alexander  of  Macedon  (Scribner,  1897),  has  given  a 
popular  representation  of  this  view  in  its  extreme  form. 


LION  OF  CHAERONEA 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY 

404-337 

Effects  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  upon  population  and  econ- 
omy.    With  the  political  developments  from  the  close  of  the  Pelop- 
omiesian  war  to  the  formation  of  the  Hellenic  union  under  Philip 
the  economic  and  social  conditions  of  the  period  are  closely  inter- 
related.    We   are   able   but   roughly  to   estimate  the   effects   of   the 
Peloponnesian  war  upon  population  and  economy.     There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  conflict,  through  waste  of  life  and  property  and  through 
the  withdrawal  of  the  energies  of  states  from  the  productive  works  of 
peace,  was  in  a  high  degree  damaging.     The  victors  suffered  only 
less  than  the  vanquished.     Through  losses  in  war  and  more  through 
economic  causes  the  number  of  Spartan  "  peers  "  had  sunk  to  two 
thousand,  and  this  body  continued  throughout  the  fourth  century  to 
shrink  till  in  the  time  of  Aristotle  no  more  than  one  thousand  re- 
mained.    The  number  of  "  inferiors  "  correspondingly  grew  while  that 
of  the  perioeci  and  of  the  helots  remained  substantially  unchanged.^ 
These  circumstances  augmented  the  difficulty  of  governing  the  newly 
acquired  empire  and  even  of  holding  the  lower  Lacedaemonian  classes 
in  subordination.     The  situation  was  complicated  by  the  inflow  of 
silver  as  contributions  from  the  new  Aegean  allies.     Despite  a  law 
that  the  precious  metals  were  to  be  used  by  the  State  alone,  private 
citizens  now  acquired  money,  some  by  embezzling  the  public  funds. 
Among  the  latter  was  Gylippus,  an  eminent  general,  who  secreted  the 
stolen  treasure  of  Athenian  coins  beneath  his  roof,  till  his  servant 
reported  to  the  ephors  that  "  under  his  tiles  roosted  many  owls."  ^ 
Other  Spartans  avoided  the  penalty  by  depositing  their  money  with 
their  Arcadian  neighbors.     Thus  accustomed  to  disobedience  of  law 

1  Arist.  PoUt.  ii.  9.  16.  1270  a.  In  general,  Beloch.  Bevolk.  131  ff. ;  Cavaignac,  in  Klio. 
XII  (1912).  270.  For  an  appreciation  of  Lacedaenion  at  this  time  the  reader  should  have 
in  mind  her  fundamental  organization  (ch.  vi.  §2)  and  her  condition  in  the  early  fifth 
centurv;    p.    222. 

2  Plut.  Lys.  16.    Law  as  to  precious  metals;  ib.  17. 

394 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  395 

and  traditional  discipline,  wealthy  Spartans  went  through  the  form  of 
eating  their  meagre  repasts  at  public  tables  while  living  privately  in 
unstinted  luxury.  This  expensive  standard  of  life,  introduced  by  the 
few  wealthy,  was  readily  adopted,  along  with  its  attendant  contempt 
for  the  law,  by  the  poorer  peers.  The  increasing  luxury  and  rising 
prices  of  imports,  together  with  the  long-continued  tendency  to  the 
concentration  of  landed  property  in  the  hands  of  women,  did  more 
to  thin  the  ranks  of  the  peers  than  had  been  effected  by  the  war  with 
Athens.  The  reason  is  that  a  peer  whose  estate  fell  menacingly  near 
the  minimum  production  required  by  his  syssition  had  no  lawful 
means  of  recruiting  his  failing  fortune;  for  he  was  still  a  professional 
soldier,  who  could  engage  in  no  business  nor  even  work  with  his  own 
hands  in  his  field.  His  only  resource  was  to  wed  a  rich  wife;  yet 
even  thus  he  might  incur  the  penalty  for  a  breach  of  the  law  against 
an  unseemly  marriage.  At  Sparta,  feminism,  nourished  by  her  pe- 
culiar usages,  had  taken  the  form  of  lawlessness  and  intemperance, 
luxury  at  table  and  in  dress,  basking  in  dainty  robes  of  costly  work- 
manship or  rearing  horses  for  the  chariot  events  at  Olympia.'"'  The 
ostentation  and  arrogance  of  women  were  especially  irritating  to  the 
lower  classes.  Among  the  latter  the  inferiors,  a  grade  of  Spartans 
too  poor  to  make  their  contributions  to  the  syssitia  and  for  this  reason 
disfranchised,  formed  a  dangerous  element  in  the  community.  Shortly 
after  the  accession  of  Agesilaus  one  of  their  number,  Cinadon,  hatched 
a  conspiracy  for  overthrowing  the  constitution  and  levelling  distinc- 
tions of  rank.  The  plot  came  to  light;  and  Cinadon,  when  arrested, 
gave  as  his  motive:  "  I  wished  to  be  inferior  to  no  man  in  Lacedae- 
mon."  He  and  his  accomplices  miserably  perished;  *  but  their  death 
gave  no  lasting  security  to  the  peers,  who  continued  to  dwell  on  the 
thin  crust  of  a  social  volcano.  It  was  in  fact  a  misfortune  for 
Sparta  that  no  Cinadon  or  Lysander  by  reform  or  revolution  succeeded 
in  extending  the  citizenship  at  least  to  the  perioeci  and  in  emancipat- 
ing the  helots.  Her  rigid  system,  well  adapted  to  a  primitive  com- 
munity and  exceedingly  efficient  while  the  citizens  believed  in  it,  had 
long  been  obsolete,  continued  merely  by  the  inertia  of  the  Spartans. 
They  had  lost  the  character  essential  to  its  vital  maintenance;  and 

3  Disobedience  of  the  law;  Athen.  vi.  24  (partly  from  Poseidonius).  Two  fifths  of  the 
land  possessed  by  women;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  14  f.,  1270  a.  Straitened  condition  of  the 
peers;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  5.  17.  1264  a;  Plut.  Ages.  26.  Unseemly  marriage;  Plut.  Lys.  30. 
Feminine  lawlessness  and  extravagance;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  5-13,  1269  b  f . ;  Plut.  Lys.  2; 
Michel,  no.  951. 

4  The  thrilling  story  is  told  by  Xenophon,  Hellenica,  iii.  3.  4-7;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  7.  3,  1306 
b;  cf.  the  attempt  of  Pausanias  in  earlier  time;  p.   238. 


396  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

instead  of  expanding  in  culture  and  in  outlook  with  other  Hellenes, 
they  had  grown  more  ignorant  and  more  illiberal  than  ever.  Dream- 
ers like  Plato,  disregarding  the  facts,  might  in  imagination  transform 
them  into  ideal  citizens,  converting  even  their  shortcomings  into  trans- 
cendent virtues ;  and  laconizers  in  various  cities  might  still  go  about  in 
short  chitons,  with  caestus  on  arm,  and  with  ears  bruised  in  the  curious 
delusion  that  by  these  outward  forms  they  were  embodying  the  manli- 
ness of  Lacedaemon.  Xenophon,  however,  a  practical  man,  though 
an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Sparta,  saw  in  the  petty  ambition  and 
sordid  greed  of  individuals  a  mark  of  decadence,  whereas  the  cold 
reasoner  Aristotle  found  every  branch  of  the  government  weakened 
through  venality  and  incapacity.^  In  his  opinion  the  fundamental 
defect  lay  in  the  mistaken  object  of  their  education:  "  The  Lacedae- 
monians .  .  .  brutalize  their  children  by  laborious  exercises  which 
they  think  will  make  them  courageous.  In  fact  as  we  have  often  re- 
peated, education  should  not  be  exclusively  directed  to  this  or  to  any 
other  single  end.  Even  if  we  suppose  the  Lacedaemonians  to  be  right 
in  their  end,  they  do  not  attain  it;  for  among  the  barbarians  and 
among  animals  courage  is  found  associated,  not  with  the  greatest 
ferocity,  but  with  a  gentle  and  lionlike  temper.  ...  It  is  not  strange 
that  the  Lacedaemonians,  while  they  were  themselves  assiduous  in 
their  laborious  drill,  were  superior  to  others,  but  are  now  beaten  both 
in  war  and  in  gymnastic  exercises.  For  their  ancient  superiority  di'd 
not  depend  upon  their  mode  of  training  the  youth,  but  only  on  the 
circumstance  that  they  trained  them  at  a  time  when  others  did  not. 
Hence  we  may  infer  that  the  noble,  not  the  brutal,  should  have  the 
first  place.  .  .  .  We  should  judge  the  Lacedaemonians,  not  from 
what  they  have  been,  but  from  what  they  are;  for  now  they  have  rivals 
who  compete  with  their  education,  whereas  formerly  they  had  none."  " 
Here  is  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  Lacedaemonians  had  remained 
stationary  for  centuries  while  the  other  Hellenes  were  progressing. 
Archaeological  research,  however,  convinces  us  of  their  actual  de- 
cline.'' As  usually  happens,  too,  with  extreme  views,  the  judgments 
of  Plato  and  Aristotle  are  both  wrong.  In  spite  of  shortcomings 
the  conduct  of  the  Spartans  in  crises,  as  after  the  battle  of  Leuctra, 
still  reveals  good  results  of  their  discipline,  while  their  inbred  cour- 

5  Plato's  view  of  the  Spartans;  p.  439  f.  Laconizers;  Plat.  Protag.  342.  Xenophon's  com- 
ment. ;  Const.  Lac.  14  fcomposed  about  378  when  the  fortune  of  Sparta  was  at  a  low  ebb). 
Aristotle's  criticisms;  Polit.  ii.  9,  1269  f. 

6  Arist.   Polit.   viii.  4.   1-7,   1338  b. 

7  P.   too  n.  45. 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  397 

age,  their  military  training  and  prudence  in  authority  still  recom- 
mended individual  Spartans  as  commanders  to  Hellenic  States  when 
menaced  by  especial  danger.  It  was  worthy  of  her  past  that,  after 
the  overwhelming  IVIacedonian  victory  at  Chaeronea,  Sparta  alone  of 
all  the  city-states  continued  to  maintain  her  liberty  against  the  vic- 
tor.*^ 

Effects  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  as  a  whole.  The  effect  of  the 
war  with  Athens  on  Peloponnese  as  a  whole  was  less  marked.  The 
isolation  of  the  peninsula  by  the  Athenian  fleet  during  the  early  years 
of  the  struggle  must  have  greatly  damaged  commerce.  Toward  the 
end  of  the  conflict,  when  all  fear  of  the  Athenian  naval  supremacy  had 
vanished,  there  began  a  tendency  to  concentrate  in  cities  and  to  an  in- 
dustrial economy,  which  continued  during  the  fourth  century.  Hence 
it  was  that  Agesilaus  could  speak  of  Sparta's  allies  as  potters,  smiths, 
masons,  carpenters,  and  other  such  mechanics.  These  changes  dimin- 
ished the  number  capable  of  equipping  themselves  for  service  in  the 
heavy  infantry,  while  adding  to  the  day  laborers  and  the  slaves.  Hence 
while  the  total  population  remained  about  the  same  in  numbers,  it 
underwent  social  deterioration.  The  decline  of  agriculture  was  not 
especially  due  to  an  impoverishment  of  the  soil;  for  toward  the  end 
of  the  century,  if  we  may  trust  Aristotle,  even  the  serf-worked  fields 
of  Lacedaemon  were  capable  of  supporting  an  army  of  30,000  foot 
and  1,500  horse.  After  all  has  been  said,  the  military  decline  of 
Peloponnese  in  the  fourth  century  may  be  traced  to  political  disinte- 
gration more  than  to  waste  of  war  or  to  economic  factors.^ 

Sicily.  Syracuse,  another  victor  in  the  war  with  Athens,  made 
no  economic  gain  through  her  success;  and  soon  all  Sicily  had  to 
auffer  repeated  Carthaginian  invasions,  involving  not  only  the  desola- 
tion of  fields  but  the  destruction  of  wealthy  cities.  The  long  tyranny 
of  Dionysius,  however,  in  spite  of  exactions  brought  prosperity  to 
Sicily  and  contributed  to  the  growth  of  his  capital  till  it  became 
the  greatest  city  in  the  Hellenic  world.  The  downfall  of  the  tyranny 
was  followed  by  other  destructive  wars,  but  every  new  period  of  quiet 
renewed  her  prosperity,  while  losses  in  population  were  made  good 
by  colonization.  It  speaks  well  for  the  vitality  of  the  Sicilians  and 
for  the  continued  fertility  of  their  soil  that  in  the  third  century,  when 
Rome  and  Carthage  first  came  into  conflict,  the  island  was  still  wealthy 

8  Conduct  after  Leuctra;   p.   445.     After  Chaeronea;   p.   477. 

9  Mechanics  under  Agesilaus;  Plut.  Ages.  26.     Military  strength  of  Peloponneses;   Cavaig- 
nac,  In  Klio  XII.  279  f.    Fertility  of  Lacedaemon;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  9.  16,  1270  a. 


398  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  populous.  Under  Agathocles  (317-289),  the  population  had 
increased  to  about  a  million,  the  great  maiority  of  whom  were  free- 
men.^"    From  that  time,  however,  it  began  to  decline. 

Magna  Graecia.  Although  in  the  fourth  century  the  greater  part 
of  Magna  Graecia  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Lucanians,  the  cities 
which  remained  free  were  still  prosperous.  Among  them  Tarentum 
was  by  far  the  largest.  It  is  reported  that  she  could  put  into  the  field 
an  army  of  20,000  foot  and  2,000  horse.  A  reason  for  her  great- 
ness lay  in  the  circumstance  that  her  port  was  the  first  reached  by 
ships  sailing  westward  from  Greece  or  southward  from  the  Adriatic 
coasts,  which  poured  a  considerable  trade  into  southern  Italy  and 
Sicily.  The  fertile  soil  of  the  Tarentines,  their  fisheries,  handicrafts, 
and  extensive  trade  with  the  interior  as  well  as  with  foreign  lands 
brought  them  extraordinary  wealth.  Thence  arose  a  standard  of  com- 
fort and  refinement  which  dazzled  or  shocked  the  rest  of  Hellas.  Men 
wore  delicately  fringed  gowns,  such  as  only  the  most  luxurious 
women  elsewhere  could  afford,  and  they  multiplied  the  festivals  till, 
it  is  said,  their  number  exceeded  the  days  of  the  year.  Theopompus, 
a  contemporary  historian,  thus  describes  their  life :  "  The  city  of 
the  Tarentines  sacrifices  oxen  nearly  every  month  and  provides  public 
dinners,  whereas  the  multitude  of  private  persons  are  continually 
engaged  in  banquets  and  drinking  parties.  The  Tarentines  have 
some*  such  saying  as  this:  '  Other  men  because  they  are  fond  of 
personal  exertion,  and  because  they  devote  themselves  to  actual  labor, 
thus  prepare  their  subsistence  for  the  future,  whereas  we  through 
our  banquets  and  pleasures  are  not  about  to  live  but  are  already 
living.'  "  Naturally  on  such  topics  writers  are  prone  to  exaggera^ 
tion;  and  this  extreme  criticism  we  may  balance  by  the  fact  that 
through  the  fourth  century  the  Pythagoreans  were  a  power  in  the 
government,  whose  moderation  in  the  distribution  of  offices  among 
the  rich  and  poor  calls  forth  the  commendation  of  Aristotle.^^  De- 
spite the  commerce  and  industry  of  Tarentum,  Syracuse,  and  lesser 
cities,  the  economy  of  Sicily  and  Magna  Graecia  was  chiefly  agricul- 
tural. 

Effects  of  the  war  on  the  island  States  of  the  Aegean  Sea. 

10  Prosperity  under  Dionysius;  Isoc.  Nicodes,  23  (about  370).  Under  Timolton;  Died, 
xvi.  83;  Plut.  Timoleon,  22-4,  35,  39.  Under  Agathocles;  Timaeus,  in  Cicero,  Republic,  iii. 
31.  43;  cf.   Verres,  iv.   52.   117;   Beloch,  Bevolk.  298  f. 

11  Lucanian  conquests;  p.  459.  Military  strength  of  Tafentum;  Diod.  xx.  104.  2.  Strabo 
vi.  3.  4,  gives  30,000  foot  and  3,000  horse.  Commercial  advantages;  Polyb.  x.  1.  Luxury 
and  dissipation;  Strabo,  loc.  cit. ;  Clearchus,  in  Athen.  iv.  61;  Plato,  Laws,  637  a;  Polyb. 
viii.  26.    Governmental  sobriety;  Strabo  vi.  3.  4;  Arist.  Polit.  vi.  S.  10  f.,  1320  b. 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  399 

Doubtless  the  greatest  sufferers  from  the  wars  of  the  fifth  and  fourth 
centuries  were  the  island  States  of  the  Aegean  sea,  exposed  as  they 
were  to  the  alternate  ravages  of  the  two  hostile  powers,  and  to  the 
more  destructive  conflicts  of  civil  factions.  The  waste  of  agricul- 
tural resources  in  the  destruction  of  vineyards,  orchards,  and  forests, 
and  in  the  thinning  of  the  soil  through  forced  neglect  and  through 
washings  by  rain,  could  never  be  wholly  repaired.  Vainly  the 
courageous  inhabitants  tried  to  balance  the  loss  of  productivity  by 
extending  their  terraces  high  up  the  mountain  sides;  to  the  contem- 
porary observer  their  poverty  seemed  pitiable.  A  partial  recovery 
was  experienced  under  the  too  brief  ascendancy  of  Athens.  It  was 
not  till  the  opening  of  the  East  by  Alexander  that  the  Aegean  islands 
along  the  Asiatic  seaboard  took  on  a  new  industrial  life,  as  the 
centre  of  commerce  shifted  from  Peiraeus  to  Rhodes.^" 

The  Greeks  of  Asia.  The  Greeks  of  Asia,  whom  Lacedaemon 
sold  to  the  King,  suffered  chiefly  through  lack  of  respect  in  the  Persian 
government  for  the  personality  of  its  subjects.  It  was  not  enough 
that  the  beautiful  youths  and  girls  of  respectable  Hellenic  families 
were  drafted  into  the  degrading  service  and  the  harems  of  Persian 
grandees;  but  the  entire  population  had  daily  to  submit  to  the  insolence 
of  the  satraps  and  their  deputies,  whose  effeminacy  the  Hellenes 
despised.  Isocrates  declares:  "They  suffer  in  their  own  persons 
harsher  treatment  than  our  bought  slaves;  for  no  one  illtreats  his 
servants  as  they  (the  Persians)  chastise  free  men."  Not  strange  there- 
fore was  their  zeal  in  supporting  Agesilaus  and  their  intense  regret 
at  his  departure. ^^  They  were  disturbed,  too,  by  the  armed  rivalries 
of  the  satraps  and  by  the  operations  of  the  Corinthian  war.  After- 
ward, however,  came  an  era  of  quiet  in  which,  so  far  as  material  gains 
can  atone  for  loss  of  freedom,  they  were  repaid  by  an  extraordinary 
increase  of  wealth  and  prosperity,  chiefly  due  to  freedom  of  commerce 
with  the  interior.  Under  these  favorable  circumstances  Ephesus 
assumed  a  splendor  unknown  to  her  past,  and  as  the  capital  of  Caria 
Halicarnassus  revived.  At  the  same  time  the  Hellenes  of  Asia  grad- 
ually adapted  themselves  to  Oriental  ideas  and  conditions  of  life. 

The  Lords  of  Thessaly.     In  the  period  now  under  review  Thessaly 

12  The  expulsion  of  an  island  population;  Xen.  Hell.  ii.  3.  6  f. ;  Plut.  Lys.  14.  Pitiable 
condition;  Isoc.  Pati.  132.  Advantages  of  Athenian  supremacy;  Pistorius,  Geschichtt  von 
Lesbos,  95. 

i:'.  Treatment  of  Hellenic  youths  and  girls;  (Ferguson,  Hell.  Ath.);  Persian  effeminacy 
Plut.  Ages.  9,  14.  Quotation  from  Isocrates;  Pan.  123.  Asiatic  Greeks  and  Agesilaus;  Xen. 
Hell.  iii.  4.   16  ff. ;   iv.  2.  4;   Plut.  Ages.   14. 


400  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

came  into  greater  prominence,  though  less  as  a  master  than  as  a  victim 
of  political  events.     This  country  contained  a  larger  area  of  arable 
land  than  any  other  in  Greece,  but  was  occupied  from  of  old  by  great 
lords  ruling  over  a  multitude  of  serfs  —  the  penestae.     Partly  for  this 
reason  it  was  one  of  the  most  backward  countries  in  Hellas.     Adopt- 
ing the  worst  vices  of  civilization,  the  masters  passed  their  time  in  dic- 
ing and  drunkenness,  eating  at  tables  loaded  with  expensive  viands, 
entertained  meanwhile  by  piping  and  dancing  girls.     Since  the  age 
of  Pericles,  however,  the  lords  began  to  open  their  hearts  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  Hellenic  culture.     Especially  rhetoric  and  sophistry  found  a 
welcome  home  with  them ;  and  undoubtedly  the  latter  study  had  a  part 
in  the  luckless  movement  toward  social  levelling.     It  is  significant 
that  near  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  Pherae,  the  city  most  accessible 
by  sea  to  the  rest  of  Hellas,  was  the  scene  of  an  attempt  to  liberate 
the  penestae,  made  by  candidates  for  the  tyranny.     In  their  usurpa- 
tion they  freed  the  serfs  of  the  neighborhood  and  armed  them  against 
their  lords.     This   movement,   however,   did   not   end    in    a   general 
liberation.     The  lack  of  enterprise  in  the  lower  class,  due  to  their 
subjection,  kept  the  general  economy  pastoral  and  agricultural.     The 
considerable  exports  and  imports  accordingly  were  in  the  hands  of 
foreigners,  who  by  means  of  their  capital  mercilessly  exploited  the  in- 
habitants.    The  continual  seditions  and  the  militar}'  interference  of 
Spartans,  Thebans,  Phocians,  and  Macedonians,  joined  with  the  es- 
tablished serfdom  in  augmenting  the  poverty  of  the  country  and  in 
retarding  its  economic  and  cultural  progress.^* 

Attica  during  the  fourth  century.  It  is  only  for  Attica  that  our 
information  affords  us  a  view  of  the  general  features  of  social  and 
economic  life  during  the  fourth  centur>',  though  even  for  that  country 
there  are  many  disappointing  gaps  in  our  knowledge.  The  remainder 
of  the  chapter  accordingly  is  given  to  Athenian  conditions  with  occa- 
sional references  to  other  parts  of  Hellas. 

Athens  —  her  condition  after  the  Peloponnesian  War.  Nat- 
urally Athens  was  among  the  chief  sufferers  in  the  Peloponnesian  War. 
Her  country  was  more  systematically  harried  than  any  other  in  Hellas, 
and  the  thin  soil  had  less  to  lose  by  negligence  in  fertilizing  and  by 
the  enemy's  ravages  than  that  of  the  islands.     The  mountain  sides 

14  Dissipations  of  the  nobles;  Theopomp.  Phil,  iv,  in  Athen.  xii.  33.  Gorgias  in  Larisa; 
Plato,  Menon,  70;  Isoc.  Antid.  155.  Native  sophist  of  Larisa;  H.  Civ.  no.  116.  Attempted 
liberation  of  the  serfs;  Xen.  Hrll.  ii.  3.  36;  Mem.  i.  2.  24.  Exploitation  by  foreigners;  H. 
Civ.  p.  379  (§14)  and  n.  4.  Confusion  and  poverty;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  5.  22;  9.  2,  1264  a,  1269 
a;  Isoc.  Peace,  117  f. 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  401 

became  more  barren,  the  rocks  protruded  more  nakedly  than  before. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  with  all  their  efforts  the  inhabitants  ever  suc- 
ceeded in  restoring  the  soil  to  its  earlier  fertility.  Country  dwellings 
and  barns  had  been  burned  or  torn  down  and  carried  off  by  the  The- 
bans;  the  live  stock  had  been  killed  and  eaten  by  owners  or  driven 
off  by  the  invaders.  More  than  20,000  slaves,  many  of  them  skilled 
workmen,  had  deserted  to  the  enemy.  Thus  many  citizens  were  de- 
prived of  their  shop-hands  and  their  livelihood.  Merchant  ships  as 
well  as  war  galleys  had  perished,  and  industry  pitiably  shrank. 
The  loss  of  property  in  the  islands  impoverished  many  citizens  for- 
merly in  affluence.  "  As  for  money,"  says  one  of  these  unfortunates, 
"  you  would  have  a  better  chance  to  find  it  in  the  street  than  to  borrow 
it  of  a  banker."  ^^ 

Even  more  deplorable  was  the  loss  of  life.  In  battle,  pestilence, 
starvation,  and  executions  under  the  Thirty,  the  number  of  adult  male 
citizens  had  sunk  to  about  20,000;  and  it  never  thereafter  greatly 
exceeded  that  total.  In  addition  to  dwindling  economic  resources  and 
a  notable  rise  in  the  standard  of  living,  it  is  probable  that  the  spread 
of  malaria  from  the  neglected  fields  militated  against  racial  vitality.^® 

Attica,  a  country  of  small  farms.  Of  the  total  number  of  citi- 
zens mentioned  above,  fully  20,000  were  landowners.  Although 
doubtless  many  holdings  were  dwelling-lots  in  the  city  or  Peiraeus, 
there  is  abundant  evidence  that  through  the  fourth  century  Attica  re- 
mained a  country  of  small  farms.  For  example,  of  sixteen  rural 
mortgages  known  to  us,  which  ranged  from  five  hundred  to  eight 
thousand  drachmas,  precisely  one  half  were  within  the  limit  of  a 
thousand  drachmas.  Even  though  the  actual  value  may  have  been 
double  the  mortgage,  these  farms  were  remarkably  small.  In  like 
manner,  of  nine  rural  inheritances  ranging  from  two  thousand  to  fif- 
teen thousand  drachmas,  and  representing  therefore  the  better  class  of 
landed  properties,  the  average  value  was  seven  thousand  five  hundred 
drachmas.  As  happens  in  a  country  of  small  farms,  the  estates  of  a 
relatively  wealthy  proprietor  were  located  in  widely  separted  parts 
of  the  country.  Far  from  any  tendency  toward  latifundia,  the  process 
of  dividing  larger  estates  among  several  owners  was  under  way  in 
this  period;    so  that  when   a  relatively  great   farm   came   upon   the 

15  Theban  profit  from  the  war;  H.  Civ.  no.  118  {Ox.  Hell).  Desertion  of  slaves;  Thuc. 
vii.  27  f.  Impoverishment  and  scarcity  of  money;  H.  Civ.  no.  153  (Xen.  Mem.)\  Isoc. 
Aniid.   161.     Quotation;   Xen.  Mem.  ii.  7.  2. 

16  Population;  Beloch,  Bevolkcrung,  74;  Meyer  Forsch.  II.  166  cj.  Beloch,  in  Klio  V 
(1905).  366.     Malaria;   Jones,  Malaria  and  Greek  History,  38  ff.,   75, 


402  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

market,  often  it  was  divided  into  small  plots  in  order  to  attract  pur- 
chasers with  restricted  means.  An  estate  of  forty-five  acres,  one  half 
for  cultivation,  the  rest  for  woodland  and  pasture,  was  considered  very 
comfortable,  whereas  one  of  sixty-five  acres  was  opulent.  The  facts 
thus  far  mentioned  point  to  a  healthful  country  economy.^'  Condi- 
tions elsewhere  in  Hellas  were  similar.  While  under  oligarchies  all 
the  land  remained  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  in  democracies  the  farms 
were  small.  Expressing  this  general  principle,  Aristotle  says :  "  Now 
no  one  is  in  want  because  estates  are  divided  into  as  many  parcels 
as  there  are  citizens."  ^® 

The  restoration  of  the  ruined  Attic  farms  after  the  war,  involving 
the  planting  of  trees,  the  rebuilding  of  houses,  the  purchase  of  tools 
and  stock,  was  heroically  accomplished  in  the  face  of  enormous  diffi- 
culties and  discouragements;  of  that  fact  the  great  number  of  mort- 
gage inscriptions  of  the  fourth  century  give  evidence.  Particularly 
the  farmers  had  to  compete  with  imported  grain  kept  cheap  by  gov- 
ernmental regulation.  At  the  same  time  business  attractions  were 
such  as  to  induce  not  a  few  to  sell  their  farms  and  move  into  the 
City  or  Peiraeus.  We  hear  of  an  Athenian  who  made  a  fortune  by 
buying  up  worn-out  estates  and  improving  them  for  sale  at  a  higher 
price.  There  were  always  purchasers;  for  though  the  profits  were 
small,  the  investment  was  safe.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  wh-^reas 
many  farmers  failed  through  ignorance  and  sloth,  it  was  practicable 
with  prudence  and  energy,  not  only  to  make  a  living  by  agriculture, 
but  actually  to  accumulate  property. 

V  Scientific  farming.  One  who  wished  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of 
agriculture  no  longer  had  to  depend  on  the  experience  of  his  neigh- 
bors or  on  the  Works  and  Days  of  Hesiod  but  could  read  scientific 
books  on  the  subject  by  specialists.  Of  this  literature  we  have  but  a 
brief  example  in  Xenophon's  Economist.  Farmers  of  this  age  paid 
great  attention  to  the  enrichment  of  the  soil;  evidently  they  were  ac- 
quainted even  with  mineral  fertilizers.  Ordinarily  they  allowed 
their  land  to  lie  fallow  on  alternate  years,  as  had  been  the  custom 
for  ages,  but  took  the  first  step  toward  the  rotation  of  crops  in  planting 
a  field  two  successive  summers  for  different  products  and  leaving  it 
fallow  the  third.     We  have  no  means  of  exactly  measuring  the  pro- 

17  Proportion  of  loan  to  value;  Demosth.  Onetor  II,  i.  6;  Size  of  estates;  Guiraud,  Prop, 
fonc.  392  f.  Farms  of  45  and  65  acres;  Demosth.  Lept.  115;  Plut.  Arist.  27;  Lysias,  Prop- 
erty of  Aristophanes,  29. 

18  Oligarchic  land-holding;  Guiraud,  Prop.  fonc.  396.  Democratic;  Arist.  Polit.  ii.  6.  11, 
1265  b  (quotation  in  text)  with  evident  exaggeration. 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  403 

ductivity;  yet  Xenophon  testifies  to  the  variety  and  luxuriance  of 
plant  life  in  a  climate  of  extraordinary  mildness,  and  i)ictures  the  fish- 
ermen, as  they  scud  along  the  coastlands,  viewing  a  panorama  of 
farmsteads  and  of  grain-bearing  fields  good  and  bad,  where  we  now 
find  scant  pasture  for  goats. ^^ 

Commerce.  Throughout  the  fourth  century  accordingly  agricul- 
ture remained  the  chief  economic  basis  of  Athenian  life.  Next  in  im- 
portance was  commerce,  which  consisted  largely  of  importations  and 
of  the  transit  of  merchandise  through  Peiraeus  to  other  countries.  In 
the  first  place  Attica  produced  only  a  third  of  the  grain  consumed  by 
its  inhabitants.  The  remaindei  had  to  be  imported  from  Pontus, 
Egypt,  Sicily,  and  elsewhere.  "  You  are  doubtless  aware,"  says 
Demosthenes  to  his  fellow-citizens,  "  that  we  consume  more  foreign 
grain  than  any  other  people  in  the  world.  The  grain,  however,  which 
comes  in  from  the  Pontus  equals  the  whole  quantity  from  other  mar- 
kets; and  no  wonder,  not  only  because  that  region  has  an  abundance 
of  grain,  but  because  Leucon  who  reigns  there  has  granted  exemption 
from  duty  to  those  who  export  to  Athens,  and  issues  an  order  that  mer- 
chants bound  for  our  port  shall  load  their  vessels  first.  Having  the 
exemption  (in  this  city)  for  himself  and  his  children,  he  has  given  it 
to  all  of  you.  Consider  what  an  important  thing  it  is.  He  takes  a 
thirtieth  from  all  who  export  grain  from  his  dominions.  Now  the 
amount  of  grain  coming  to  us  from  his  country  is  about  400,000  me- 
dimni,  as  one  may  learn  from  the  entry  kept  by  the  grain-inspect- 
ors." ^^  This  passage  affords  interesting  evidence  of  tariff  reciprocity 
between  Athens  and  the  Tauric  Chersonese  (Crimea)  under  King 
Leucon.  So  anxious  were  the  Athenians  to  provide  for  a  grain  sup- 
ply that  they  made  it  a  capital  crime  in  a  citizen  or  a  metic  to  carry 
grain  to  any  non- Attic  port;  and  of  all  grain  brought  to  Peiraeus  two 
thirds  had  to  be  sold  in  the  country  itself,  leaving  but  one  third  to  be 
taken  elsewhere. ^^  Among  other  imports  were  salt-iish,  hides,  timber 
for  ship-building,  slaves,  fine  wines,  drugs,  paints  and  dyes,  iron,  cop- 
per, ivory,  and  innumerable  other  articles  of  use  and  luxury  for  home 

19  Examples  of  mortgages;  Michel,  no.  1371  ff.  Governmental  regulation  of  prices;  H. 
Civ.  no.  131  (Lysias,  Grain  Dealers).  Concentration  in  cities;  H.  Civ.  no.  132  (Xen.  Ways). 
Profit  in  improving  land;  Xen.  Econ.  20.  22-4.  Failure  and  success  in  farming; 
B.  Civ.  p.  499  f.  (Xen.  Econ.).  Example  of  a  spendthrift;  H.  Civ.  no.  155  (Aeschines, 
Timarchus).  Agricultural  science;  Arist.  Polit.  i.  11.  7,  1258  b;  Xen.  Econ.  16-19.  Min- 
eral fertilizers;  Geoponici,  ii.  41;  Theophrastus,  Plants,  iii.  17.  8;  vi.  10.  9.  Rotation 
of  crops;  Olick.  in  PWK.  I.  268.  Variety  and  fertility  of  Attic  soil;  Xen.  Way,  1.  3; 
Econ.   16.   7. 

20  Demosth.  Lept.   31   f.     Meyer,   Forsch.   II.    193  ff. 

21  Statesmen  maintain  the  grain  supply;  Xen.  Mem.  iii.  6.  13.  Governmental  control; 
I  ycurgus,  Leocrates,  27 ;   Arist.   Frag.  450. 


404  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

consumption  or  for  reshipment  to  neighboring  States;  in  fact  Peiraeus 
remained  the  chief  distributing  centre  of  the  Hellenic  world.  Com- 
merce accordingly  yielded  ample  profits  to  merchants  and  shipowners, 
while  furnishing  remunerative  labor  to  a  numerous  class  of  master 
ship-builders,  carpenters,  sailors,  and  longshoremen. 

Athenian  exports.  In  exchange  the  Athenians  could  export  wine 
and  oil  in  their  vases,  which  were  now  suffering  an  artistic  decline 
and  were  therefore  less  eagerly  sought.  They  sent  abroad  the  products 
of  their  shops,  especially  arms,  cutlery,  and  household  furniture.  A 
considerable  trade  in  books  was  growing  up.  With  papyrus  brought 
from  Egypt  books  were  made  in  the  form  of  rolls,  which  were  packed 
in  chests  and  shipped  to  all  parts  of  the  Mediterranean  world  and 
even  to  the  Pontic  shores.  Another  product  for  which  there  was  an 
increasing  demand  is  thus  described  by  a  contemporary :  "  Within 
its  (the  country's)  folds  lies  imbedded  by  nature  an  unstinted  store 
of  marble,  out  of  which  are  chiselled  temples  and  altars  of  rarest 
beauty  and  the  glittering  splendor  of  images  sacred  to  the  Gods. 
This  marble  is  an  object  of  desire  to  many  foreigners,  Hellenes  and 
barbarians  alike."  ^-  Another  natural  resource  of  great  importance 
lay  in  the  silver  mines  of  Laurium,  whose  output  had  greatly  shrunk 
through  the  war  with  Peloponnese.  Toward  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century,  however,  as  new  veins  were  discovered  and  the  silver-bear- 
ing area  widened,  the  yield  became  so  abundant  as  to  attract  an  in- 
creasing number  of  contractors  and  to  encourage  the  false  idea  that 
the  field  was  inexhaustible.  The  right  to  mine  was  sold  for  a  lump 
sum  to  contractors,  who  paid  annually,  in  addition  to  the  purchase 
money,  a  twenty-fourth  of  the  product.  The  annual  income  of  the 
State  from  this  source  must  have  greatly  varied  and  is  altogether  un- 
known. Thirty  to  forty  talents  a  year  is  a  mere  conjecture.  From 
the  gross  income  of  the  contractors  the  outlay  was  great;  but  free 
labor  profited  little  from  it,  as  the  manual  work  was  done  by  slaves. 
Although  contractors  sometimes  lost  money,  we  hear  of  one  individual 
who  amassed  a  hundred  and  sixty,  another  two  hundred,  talents,  which 
were  vast  fortunes  for  that  age.^^ 

Attic  manufactures.  By  the  side  of  commerce  Attic  manufac- 
tures occupied  a  secondary  place.  Industry,  however,  was  safe  and 
profitable.     It  is  significant  that  under  the  Thirty  and  immediately 

22  Xen.    Ways,   1.   4. 

23  Mines;  Xen.  Mem.   iii.  6.  12;  H.   Civ.  pp.  436-44  (Xen.   Ways);   Arist.  Const.  Aih.  47; 
Pseud.   Plut.    Ten  Orators,  vii.   483,   Hyp.   Eux.   36. 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  405 

afterward,  when  Athenian  economy  was  in  its  most  straitened  condi- 
tion, a  man  with  a  few  skilled  slaves  could  realize  a  handsome 
surplus  from  his  shop;  and  an  impoverished  citizen  could  convert 
his  dwelling  into  a  garment  factory,  and  with  only  his  fourteen  kins- 
women as  laborers,  could  furnish  them  a  comfortable  living  and  actu- 
ally make  money.  Industry  seems  to  have  been  scarcely  more  capital- 
ized than  agriculture.  The  two  shops  of  Demosthenes,  father  of  the 
orator,  manned  by  twenty  and  thirty-two  slaves  respectively,  appear  to 
be  typical  of  the  period.  Often  in  fact  an  individual  with  one  or 
two  slaves,  or  with  only  his  sons,  as  in  the  preceding  century,  man- 
aged his  diminutive  industry,  whether  shoe-making,  stone-cutting,  or 
other  enterprise.  Only  such  shops  could  serve  as  social  rendezvous  of 
respectable  citizens.  The  income  of  the  two  shops  above  mentioned 
amounted  to  forty-two  minas  annually;  that  of  the  individual  shop- 
keeper was  sufficient  for  the  necessities  of  life  without  luxury:  — 

My  poor  man,  'tis  true,  has  to  scrape  and  to  screw,  and  his  work  he  must 

never  be  slack  in ; 
There'll   be   no  superfluity   found   in   his  cot;    but   then  there'll  nothing   be 

lacking. 

Condition  of  laboring  class.  During  this  period  the  cost  of"?^ 
living  nearly  doubled.  The  normal  price  of  wheat  a  medimnus  rose 
from  three  to  five  or  six  drachmas;  and  there  was  perhaps  an  even 
greater  advance  in  the  cost  of  meat.  At  the  close  of  the  period  a 
sheep  fit  for  sacrifice  was  worth  about  thirty  drachmas,  an  ox  of  the 
best  quality  and  weight  four  hundred  drachmas.^*  At  the  same 
time,  however,  wages  doubled  or  trebled.  The  daily  pay  of  an  ordi- 
nary freeman  rose  from  three  obols  to  one  and  a  half  drachmas;  of 
a  mechanic  from  one  to  two  and  two  and  a  half  drachmas.-^  Notwith- 
standing the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  therefore  free  laborers  were  in  as 
good  a  condition  at  the  close  of  the  period  as  at  the  beginning.     So 

24  Industry  under  the  Thirty;  H.  Civ.  no.  153  (Xen.  Mem.).  The  garment  factory;  ib. 
From  an  aristocratic  contempt  for  labor  (f/.  H.  Civ.  152)  these  women  passed  to  the  con- 
viction that  those  only  who  worked  should  eat.  Demosthenes'  shops;  H.  Civ.  no.  156 
(Demosth.  Aphob.  I).  Shops  as  social  rendezvous;  Lysias,  For  the  Cripple,  19  f.  Quota- 
tion from  Aristoph.   Plutus,  553  f. 

Three  drachmas  for  wheat  early  in  the  century;  Aristoph.  Eccl.  547  f . ;  Ant.  Journ. 
Arch.  X  (1895).  209  ff.  (epigraphic  evidence).  Still  lower  in  time  of  Socrates;  Plut.  De 
tranq.  10;  Stobaeus  xcviii.  28.  In  time  of  Alexander  normally  five  drachmas;  Demosth. 
Against  Phormion,  38;  six  drachmas;  Pseud.  Demosth.  Phacnippus,  20,  31;  Michel,  no.  581 
B.  75.  Price  of  sheep  and  oxen  for  sacrifice;  Michel,  no.  581  B.  78  (329-8  B.  C).  Ordinary 
animals  must  have  been  considerably  lower;   Beloch,   Griech.   Cesch.   II.   356  f. 

25  Tariff  of  wages  in  329-8  (Michel,  no.  581)  compared  with  the  tariff  of  409  (H.  Civ.  no. 
10"),  which  gives  one  drachma  a  day  to  the  mechanic  or  artist.  Early  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, three  nbnls  to  the  unskilled  workman;  Aristoph.  Eccl.  307-10.  Cf.  Guiraud,  Main 
D'ocuvrc,   183  ff. 


406  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

great  was  the  demand  for  laborers  that  no  problem  of  the  unemployed 
arose  to  vex  either  statesman  or  political  scientist.  Athens  had  no  mob 
of  chronic  idlers.  Small  farms  were  still  cultivated,  as  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, mainly  by  free  hands.  Free  day-laborers  were  still  employed  on 
large  estates,  although  the  great  majority  of  hands  were  servile.  The 
positions  of  steward  and  foreman  on  large  farms  were  open  to  compe- 
tent men  of  free  birth,  though  often  filled  by  slaves  or  freedmen. 
From  the  servile  and  freed  classes,  too,  were  often  drawn  the  fore- 
men of  shops  and  the  managers  of  banks.  Slavery  had  encroached 
upon  free  labor  somewhat  beyond  the  condition  of  the  Periclean  age; 
to  a  total  of  about  100,000  free  souls,  citizen  and  metic,  we  must 
reckon  120,000-150,000  slaves.  This  encroachment,  though  appre- 
ciable, was  not  yet  sufficient  to  revolutionize  society,  create  a  slave- 
holding  capitalistic  class  or  ptiuperize  the  masses.-''  The  higher 
standard  of  life  in  this  period  made  the  struggle  of  the  poor  some- 
what more  difficult ;  but  it  was  still  possible  for  an  artisan  of  average 
strength  and  intelligence  to  earn  a  fair  living  for  his  family,  whereas 
the  wife  and  children  of  an  unskilled  workman  had  always  been  ac- 
customed to  an  ill-furnished  hut  and  a  meagre  table. 

Banking.  The  increasing  commercial  enterprise  of  the  period  pro- 
moted the  growth  of  banking.  The  temples  had  long  been  accustomed 
to  receive  from  States  and  individuals  deposits  for  safe-keeping;  and 
in  time  it  was  found  more  and  more  practicable  to  let  out  such  sums 
on  interest.  Private  banks  were  a  development  from  the  money- 
changer's trade,  which  lay  in  the  hands  of  slaves  and  freedmen;  and 
for  that  reason  the  great  bankers  of  the  period  belonged  to  the  latter 
class.  Among  them  the  most  notable  was  Pasion,  who  lived  in  the 
first  half  of  the  century.  Beginning  with  nothing,  this  freedman 
during  his  lifetime  amassed  a  fortune  of  thirty  talents.  His  public 
benefactions  were  rewarded  with  the  citizenship;  and  the  sound- 
ness of  his  business  character  gave  him  credit  throughout  the  Hellenic 
world.  The  method  of  business  was  to  receive  deposits  on  interest, 
to  make  loans  at  a  higher  rate  on  the  security  of  land  or  capital, 
to  issue  letters  of  credit,  and  to  engage  at  times  in  commercial  enter- 
prises. In  a  business  of  this  kind  it  was  especially  advantageous  to 
have   an   extensive   capital    and    security.     With    this   end    in   view 

26  Free  labor  on  large  estate;  Plato,  Euthyphron,  init.  Post  of  steward  and  foreman; 
Xen.  Mem.  ii.  8;  Econ.  12.  Population;  Meyer,  Forsch.  II.  193;  Beloch,  Griech.  Gesch.  11. 
339;  Klio,  V  (1905).  366.  Of  a  total  of  21.000  adult  male  citizens  in  322,  9,000  possessed 
property  worth  2,000  drachmas  or  more;   Diod.  xviii.   18;  cf.   Plut.  Phoc.  27. 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  407 

partnerships  were  sometimes  formed,  as  in  other  enterprises,  or  bank- 
ing stock  was  sold.  Measured  by  the  modern  standard,  however,  the 
greatest  banking  business  of  this  period  was  diminutive;  the  capital 
of  Pasion  invested  at  the  time  of  his  death  amounted  to  no  more 
than  fifty  talents.^'  Though  conducted  on  a  small  scale,  as  was 
every  branch  of  business,  banking  facilitated  the  circulation  of  money 
and  in  the  same  degree  the  activity  of  industrj^  and  commerce.  With 
this  influence  cooperated  the  increase  in  the  volume  of  precious  metals 
through  mining,  importations,  and  the  secularization  of  temple 
treasuries.  These  developments,  while  making  it  possible  for  some  of 
the  Greek  States  to  issue  gold  coins,  greatly  enhanced  wages  and  the- 
cost  of  living.^^ 

Limitation  of  resources  in  Greece.  From  the  beginning  the 
Greeks  had  occupied  an  area  of  meagre  resources,  which  by  sheer 
energy  and  intellect  they  had  made  to  minister  admirably  to  their 
material  and  spiritual  needs.  The  field  of  their  activity,  however,  "A 
was  narrowly  limited  —  on  the  East  by  the  Persian  empire,  on  the 
West  by  the  Carthaginian  sphere  of  influence.  From  the  richest 
portions  of  the  known  world  therefore  they  were  cut  off,  and  thus 
from  the  possibility  of  amassing  gigantic  fortunes.  Among  the 
causes  contributory  to  the  same  end  we  must  reckon  the  smallness  and 
instability  of  the  States,  the  rarity  and  temporary  character  of  part- 
nerships and  of  business  corporations,  the  love  of  respectability  sur- 
passing the  desire  for  wealth,  and  finally  the  spirit  of  self- 
restraint  which  fixed  a  limit  to  material  desires  and  ambitions.  Hence 
it  was  that  in  the  century  following  the  age  of  Pericles  there  was  in 
Athens,  the  commercial  centre  and  money-market  of  Hellas,  no  over- 
growth of  capitalism  with  its  attendant  laboring  proletariat,  in  fact 
no  serious  disturbance  in  the  proportion  of  rich  and  poor.-° 

Economic  organization  of  the  household.  A  potent  reason  for 
the  slow  growth  of  specialized  industries  lay  in  the  economic  organiza- 
tion of  the  household,  which  made  it  in  a  high  degree  self-sufficing. 
Although  day-laborers  and  shopkeepers  had  to  buy  their  subsistence, 
the  majority  of  Athenians  derived  from  their  farms  all  or  nearly 
all  the  vegetable  and  animal  products  which  they  needed  for  their 
own  use.     Within  the  household  these  raw  materials  were  converted 

27  Examples  of  temple  loans;  IG.  I.  no.  283;  II.  no.  814;  Beloch,  Gricch.  Gcsch.  II.  350, 
n.  4.  Chief  sources  for  banking;  Isocrates,  Trapeziticus ;  Demosth.  For  Phormion  (partly 
quoted  in  H.  Civ.  no.  157);  Against  Stcphanus  I.     Partnerships  and  stock;  H.  Civ.  no.   157. 

2s  Gold  coins,   Gardner,   P.   History  of  Ancient  Coinage,  p.   290  ff. 

29  Cf.   H.   Civ.  p.   520  (Demosth.   Phorm.). 


408  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

into  flour,  bread,  yam,  cloth  and  clothes,  leather,  and  other  necessary 
articles.  A  few  wares  only,  such  as  wheat,  metals,  dyes,  and  med- 
icine, had  to  be  bought;  and  the  well-to-do  purchased  in  the  market 
fine  cloths,  shoes,  jewelry,  wines,  and  other  luxuries,  whereas  for 
slaves  home-made  articles  were  good  enough.  The  management  of 
such  a  household  was  divided  between  husband  and  wife.  The  hus- 
band supervised  the  out-of-door  labors,  which  were  mainly  concerned 
with  the  production  of  the  raw  materials,  while  he  left  to  his  wife 
their  conversion  into  useful  goods.  She  exercised  the  function  of 
training  the  slaves  in  the  skilled  industries  and  of  moulding  their 
character  by  punishments  and  rewards,  of  nursing  them  when  sick, 
prescribing  remedies  according  to  home  recipes,  and  aiming  in  all 
these  matters  to  win  their  affection  and  loyalty  by  kindness.  Her 
task  was  far  more  difficult  than  that  of  her  husband,  and  involved 
heavier  responsibilities  than  have  thus  far  been  entrusted  to  women 
in  the  modern  industries.  While  Athenian  women  were  still  legally 
incapacitated  for  business,  and  were  often  spoken  of  as  inferior, 
the  intelligent  man  willingly  admitted  that  his  wife  was  equal  to  him- 
self in  worth  and  might  even  be  his  superior.  Some,  as  Plato,  were 
of  the  opinion  that  women  were  by  nature  like  men  and  should  for 
that  reason  engage  in  political  and  military  life;  others  like  Xenophon 
held  that,  though  equal,  they  were  different  by  nature  and  adapted 
therefore  to  a  different  set  of  functions.  From  this  class  of  thinkers 
came  the  highest  tribute  to  woman.  Xenophon  represents  a  citizen  as 
thus  addressing  his  wife,  after  remarking  upon  the  joy  of  success 
in  the  performance  of  her  manifold  functions:  "  But  the  greatest  joy 
of  all  will  be  to  prove  yourself  my  better;  to  make  me  your  faithful 
follower,  knowing  no  dread  lest  as  the  years  advance,  you  should 
decline  in  honor  in  your  household,  but  rather  trusting  that  though 
your  hair  turn  gray,  yet  in  proportion  as  you  come  to  be  a  better  help- 
mate to  myself  and  to  the  children,  a  better  guardian  of  our  home, 
so  will  your  honor  increase  throughout  the  household  as  mistress,  wife, 
and  mother,  daily  more  dearly  prized.  For  it  is  not  through  excel- 
lence of  outward  form,  but  by  reason  of  the  lustre  of  virtue  shed  forth 
upon  the  life  of  man  that  increase  is  given  to  things  beautiful  and 
good."  ^° 

an  The  chief  source  here  used  is  Xen,  Econ.  7-10;  cf.  Pseud.  Arist,  Econ.  i.  3-9.  There 
must  have  been  others  besides  Plato  (Rrpublic)  who  advocated  the  political  enfranchise- 
ment of  women  and  the  communism  of  wives  and  property,  and  who  were  ridiculed  by 
Aristophanes,  Ecclrsimusae,  composed  in  389  or  possibly  earlier,  hence  some  years  before 
the  Republic  (380-370). 


ECONOMY  AND  SOCIETY  409 

Marriage  and  divorce.  The  legal  object  of  marriage  was  the 
perpetuation  of  the  family  that  the  gods  might  receive  their  customary 
sacrifices  and  the  State  might  not  lack  citizens.  Over  and  above  this 
aim  were  recognized  the  motives  of  mutual  helpfulness  and  affec- 
tion, a  happy  life,  and  during  old  age  protection  and  support,  if 
needed,  at  the  hands  of  children  properly  reared. ^^  As  the  resources 
of  the  country  were  limited  and  colonization  had  become  impracticable, 
statesmen  and  political  thinkers  considered  it  necessary  to  keep  the 
population  stationary.  From  primitive  times  the  father  had  con- 
tinued to  exercise  the  discretionary  right  to  expose  his  children  at 
their  birth.  Girls  and  weak  or  deformed  boys  were  most  frequently 
the  victims.  Ejcposed  children  died  or  were  taken  up  and  adopted 
by  others,  or  were  enslaved  or  condemned  to  a  life  of  shame.  This 
usage  is  so  repugnant  to  Christian  civilization  that  we  cannot  treat 
it  with  equanimity.  While  militating  against  human  kindliness,  it 
contributed  to  the  physical  vitality  of  the  race.  Eugenists  added 
regulation  for  marriage  and  for  the  birth  and  nurture  of  children.** 
In  Athens  these  advantages  were  more  than  offset  by  the  early  wife- 
hood of  girls  and  the  frequent  intermarriages  of  near  kin.  As  the 
Athenians  were  not  essentially  a  money-making  people,  they  attached 
great  importance  to  keeping  the  paternal  estate  within  the  family.  In 
this  spirit  they  preferred  to  give  a  daughter  or  sister  in  marriage  to  a 
kinsman  that  the  dowry  might  not  fall  into  alien  hands.  Property 
was  divided  equally  among  sons,  and  girls  received  dowries  roughly 
proportioned  to  the  value  of  the  estate.  If  there  were  daughters 
only,  they  inherited;  but  in  that  case  the  nearest  male  kinsmen  had 
a  right  to  claim  them  in  marriage.  To  clear  the  way  for  such  unions 
it  often  happened  that  divorces  were  brought  about.  By  such  means 
the  usages  of  property  too  often  rendered  marriage  and  divorce  a 
purely  business  arrangement  and  thus  undermined  the  stability  of 
the  family. ^^ 

Average  life  of  Athenians.  Our  most  intimate  knowledge  of 
Athenian  life  and  social  thought  is  reached  through  the  medium  of 
the  orators  —  through  the  pleadings  of  plaintiff   and  defendant   in 

31  Xen.    Econ.   7,    18;    Pseud.    Arist.   Econ.   i.   3. 

32  In  general,  see  Roper,  A.  G.,  Ancient  Eugenics  (Oxford,  1913). 

33  The  Solonian  law  of  inheritance  was  still  in  force.  If  a  man  had  sons,  it  was  not 
permitted  him  to  make  a  will,  but  the  sons  inherited  equally.  If  he  had  daughters,  he 
might  devise  his  property  by  testament,  but  in  case  the  legatees  accepted,  they  had  to 
marry  the  daughters.  If  he  had  no  cliildren,  he  might  will  his  property  at  his  own  pleas- 
ure, but  he  usually  chose  his  heirs  among  kinsmen.  Testamentary  adoptions  w-ere  com- 
mon. All  the  speeches  of  Isaeus  and  many  of  those  of  Lysias  and  of  Demosthenes  have  to 
do  with  family  law.     Dowries;   H.   Civ.   no.    147.     An  adoption;   no.    149. 


410 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


the  courts  of  law.  It  is  the  nature  of  such  sources  to  bring  to  the 
light  of  day  the  most  sordid  and  petty  side  of  a  people's  character; 
and  yet  the  modern  reader  of  these  speeches  is  forced  to  the  conviction 
that  the  Athenian  litigants  and  their  kinsfolk  had  normal  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong,  that  they  possessed  approximately  the  same  failings 
and  the  same  virtues  as  the  people  of  today,  that  there  was  among 
them  no  widespread  want  or  misery,  that  in  brief  the  average  life  of 
the  plain  Athenians  was  wholesome  and  happy. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 


Bury,  574-590;  Holm,  III,  ch.  xiii;  Beloch,  II  (1st  ed.),  ch.  vii;  Pohlmann, 
R.  v.,  Geschichte  der  sozialen  Frage  und  des  Sozialismus  der  antiken  Welt, 
2  vols.  (Munich,  1912);  Glover,  chs.  ix,  xxi ;  Wallon,  Histoire  d'esclavage  (2d. 
ed.,  Paris,  1879);  Meyer,  "Die  wirtschafiiche  Entwicklung  des  antiken  Welt," 
"Die  Sklaverei  in  Altertum  "  in  Kleine  Schriften;  Guiraud,  Etudes  economiques 
sur  I'antiquite  (Paris,  1905),  and  La  propriete  joncicre  en  Grece;  Francotte, 
L'industrie  dans  la  Grece  ancienne  (Brussels,  1900)  ;  Donaldson,  Women,  etc.; 
Whibley,  Co)iipanion,  412-421,  426-443;  532-558;  Gardner,  History  of  Ancient 
Coinage;  Tucker,  Ancient  Athens  (Macmillan,  1906)  ;  Gulick,  Life  of  the 
Ancient  Greeks   (Appleton,  1902). 


MONUMENT  OF  LYSICRATES 
(Athens) 


CHAPTER  XXV 
SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  STATE 

404-337 

Growth  of  individualism.  The  growth  of  individualism,  which 
characterized  the  various  activities  of  the  fourth  century,  fostered  the 
development  not  only  of  democracy  but  of  monarchy.  In  the  political 
disintegration  resulting  from  the  decline,  first  of  the  Athenian  then  of 
the  Lacedaemonian  power,  tyrannies  sprang  up  in  some  of  the  smaller 
states;  and  in  western  Hellas  the  feebleness  of  the  socialistic  democ- 
racy of  Syracuse,  in  the  face  of  the  Carthaginian  peril,  made  possible 
the  creation  of  a  tyrannic  empire,  which  in  extent  and  power  was 
thus  far  unparalleled  in  Hellas.  At  the  same  time  in  the  minds  of 
the  educated  who  like  Xenophon  had  by  travel  seen  the  advantages 
of  monarchy  or.  like  Isocrates  and  Plato,  had  brooded  over  the  evils 
of  the  existing  state-system,  there  developed  a  sentiment  in  favor  of 
one-man  rule. 

Statesman  and  general.  Notwithstanding  these  favoring  con- 
ditions tyranny  was  less  frequent  in  the  fourth  century  than  it  had 
been  in  the  seventh  and  sixth.  The  accumulation  of  knowledge,  with 
its  organization  in  departments,  led  to  a  corresponding  specialization 
of  activities.  Statesman  and  general  were  clearly  differentiated.  The 
former  was  now  a  trained  orator  with  a  special  knowledge  of  finance 
and  of  international  administration,  whereas  the  military  leader  had 
to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  science  and  art  of  war  unknown  to 
former  ages.  Hence  as  a  rule  it  was  no  longer  possible  for  a  dema- 
gogue to  command  the  means  of  making  himself  tyrant,  and  the  repub- 
lican form  of  government  thereby  gained  stability.^ 

Prevailing  forms  of  government.  Aristocracy,  in  which  a  few 
good  men  ruled  unselfishly  and  wisely  for  the  general  advantage  of 

1  Tyranny;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  5.  6;  10.  4.  1305  a,  1310  b.  On  the  knowledge  required  of 
general  and  statesman;  Xen.  Mem.  iii.  1-7.  Xenophon,  Hipparchicus,  is  an  elementary 
treatise  on  the  training  of  cavalry.     Plato  favors  tyranny;  Laws,  iv.  709  f. 

411 


412  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  community,  was  more  a  dream  of  the  political  theorist  than  a 
historical  reality.  Certainly  in  the  fourth  century  little  if  any  vestige 
of  it  existed,  nor  could  a  man  of  practical  sense  look  upon  it  as  among 
the  possibilities  of  the  future.  The  prevailing  forms  of  government 
were  oligarchy  and  democracy.  With  them  the  statesman,  and  any 
thinker  above  the  mere  visionar>\  had  to  deal  as  conditions  capable 
of  improvement  but  too  deeply  seated  to  be  cast  aside.  Of  these  two 
types  of  republic  there  were  many  varieties  and  gradations;  so  that 
to  pronounce  an  unqualified  judgment  upon  either  would  betray  a 
lack  of  discrimination.^ 

Governmental  adjustment.     The  constitution  hinged  upon  prop- 
erty and  its  distribution.     The  rich  aimed,  not  only  to  preserve  their 
estates,  but  also  to  exploit  the  government  and  the  masses  for  their 
own  economic  profit,  whereas  the  poor  were  not  content  with  protecting 
themselves  from  the  aggressions  of  others,  but  strove  to  convert  more  or 
less  of  the  property  of  the  rich  to  the  use  of  the  State  and  of  them- 
selves.    There  existed,  too,  from  early  time  a  middle  class,  chiefly 
farmers  in  comfortable  circumstances,  fairly  satisfied  with  their  con- 
dition and  opposed  to  both  oligarchic  and  democratic  extremes.     Po- 
litical  philosophers,    such   as   Aristotle,   and   practical   statesmen    of 
broad  intelligence  concerned  themselves  with  methods  of  preserving  an 
equilibrium  of  these  social  forces,  that  neither  extreme  might  gain 
the  upper  hand.     Often  the  balance  was  upset  by  losses  in  war,  often 
by  economic  adversity  or  prosperity,  and  sometimes  by  an  injudicious 
admission  of  aliens  to  citizenship.     Against  all  such  disturbances  a 
statesman  had  to  provide.     His  chief  means  was  governmental  ad- 
justment —  the  distribution  of  offices  and  functions  in  such  a  way  as 
to  permit  neither  party  to  usurp  a  power  over  the  other.     At  Taren- 
tum  and   at  Athens,   for  example,  the  offices  were  grouped   in  two 
classes,  one  filled  by  vote,  the  other  by  lot:  the  first  for  the  better 
administration  of  the  state,  the  second  to  guarantee  to  the  poor  a  share 
in  the  government.^ 

Oligarchy,     In  the  degree  that  a  constitution  departed  from  this 
balance  in  either  direction,  it  became  unjust  and  oppressive.     Only 

2  Arist.  Polit.  v.  1.  14,   1301  b. 

3  Importance  of  property  and  of  its  distribution;  Plato,  Laws,  iii.  684;  Arist.  Polit.  ii. 
7.  2-6,  1266.  On  the  social  balance,  p.  313  above;  Arist.  Polit.  iv.  11.  4-11,  16-19,  1295  b, 
1296  a.  Causes  of  revolutions  (mostly  property);  Arist.  Polit.  v.  Reason  for  caution  in  the 
bestowal  of  citizenship;  H.  Civ.  no.  136  (Ari.st.  Polit.).  Tarentum;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  5.  11: 
1320  b.     Devices  for  securing  a  balance;  iv.  9,  1294. 


SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  STATE  413 

the  extreme  oligarchy,  however,  or  the  extreme  democracy  was  abso- 
lutely reprehensible,  and  neither  of  these  types  was  frequent.  As  in 
oligarchy  the  government  was  operated  in  the  interest  of  a  minority, 
this  form  of  constitution  was  the  less  equitable  of  the  two.  The 
few  were  always  the  wealthy,  and  enjoyed  therefore  an  excellent 
opportunity,  while  assuring  to  themselves  a  permanent  lease  of 
power,  to  benefit  and  adorn  the  State  and  to  awaken  the  gratitude  of 
the  masses.  "  It  is  fitting  that  magistrates  on  entering  office  should 
offer  magnificent  sacrifices  or  erect  some  public  building,  and  then  the 
people  who  participate  in  the  entertainments,  and  like  to  see  the  city 
decorated  with  votive  offerings  and  buildings,  will  not  desire  an  alter- 
ation in  the  government,  and  the  notables  will  have  memorials  of 
their  munificence.  This,  however,  is  anything  but  the  fashion  of  our 
modern  oligarchs,  who  are  as  covetous  of  gain  as  they  are  of  honor." 
Insolent  and  avaricious,  they  used  office  as  a  means  of  profit  in  the 
misappropriation  of  public  funds  or  in  the  practice  of  extortion  and 
judicial  oppression  upon  private  persons.  It  was  the  feeling  that  the 
public  moneys  were  being  stolen,  rather  than  their  own  exclusion  from 
office,  which  drove  the  masses  to  revolt  against  oligarchic  govern- 
ments. Added  to  the  economic  grievance  was  the  intense  hatred  of  the 
Few  for  the  Many,  expressed  in  the  oligarchic  oath  sworn  in  many 
States:  "  I  will  be  an  enemy  of  the  people,  and  will  do  against  them 
all  the  harm  I  can."  This  fiendish  rancor  is  sufficiently  illustrated 
by  the  rule  of  the  Thirty  at  Athens  and  by  the  decarchies  in  the 
Aegean  cities.  Now  as  in  the  preceding  century  the  rule  of  the 
Few  meant,  not  only  an  utter  want  of  justice  for  the  Many,  but  a 
policy  directed  to  their  enslavement.* 

Democracy.  The  other  form  of  government,  even  more  common 
than  oligarchy  in  the  fourth  century,  was  democracy,  in  which  the 
indigent  and  not  the  men  of  property  had  the  political  power  in  their 
hands.  In  other  words  democracy  was  a  government  of  the  Many 
in  their  own  interest.  This  is  the  extreme  variety  of  the  type,  of 
which  there  were  several  relatively  commendable  forms.  In  one 
of  his  classifications  Aristotle  enumerates  five  kinds  of  democracy. 
Of  four  kinds  he  approves,  as  all  are  under  the  laws;  but  the  fifth 

4  Deviation  from  the  balance;  Arist.  Polit.  v.  9.  8,  1309  b.  Oligarchy  in  interest  of  the 
few;  iii.  7.  5,  1279  b.  Always  the  wc  Ithy;  iii.  8.  7,  1280  a.  Great  opportunity;  vi.  7.  6  f., 
1321  a.  Greedy  and  unprincipled;  v.  3.  1,  1302  b.  Causes  revolts;  v.  8,  16,  1308  b.  Oath 
of  hate;  v.  9.  11,  1310  a.  Thirty  and  decarchies;  p.  428  f.  For  enslavement  of  the  people; 
p.  310. 


414  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

form  is  that  in  which  not  the  laws  but  the  multitude  rule,  in  which 
the  law  has  been  superseded  by  mere  resolutions  of  the  people.^ 

AmonfT  the  sound  forms  of  democracy  were  those  of  pastoral  and 
agricultural  peoples.  They  were  robust  in  body,  able  to  endure  the 
fatigues  of  marching  and  fighting,  and  possessed  therefore  the  highest 
degree  of  military  virtue.  Scattered  over  the  country  and  engaged  in 
their  daily  labor,  they  could  not  often  meet  in  assembly.  Once  or 
twice  a  year  they  could  gather  for  the  election  of  officials  or  for  other 
public  functions  of  like  importance,  but  were  compelled  to  leave 
the  current  administration  to  magistrates  and  council.  Under  such 
circumstances  officials  were  usually  elected  on  the  ground  of  fitness, 
and  the  government  was  wisely  conducted."  These  economic  condi- 
tions still  prevailed  over  a  large  part  of  the  Greek  peninsula,  as 
Aetolia,  Achaea,  and  Arcadia. 

An  advance  toward  pure  democracy.  Individualistic  develop- 
ments. Industrial  States,  however,  had  advanced  beyond  such  con- 
ditions in  the  direction  of  pure  democracy.  Mechanics  of  every  de- 
scription, plying  their  various  trades  within  the  city,  readily  found 
leisure  to  attend  the  assembly,  and  the  aged  men  of  their  families 
could  sit  year  after  year  in  the  law  courts.  Large  revenues  enabled 
the  government  to  pay  for  official  service  and  even  for  attendance  at 
the  assembly.  This  condition  resulted  in  part  from  a  natural  histori- 
cal growth  —  the  gradual  diffusion  of  intelligence  which  endowed  an 
ever  increasing  number  of  the  population  with  political  capacity. 
It  came  in  part,  too,  as  a  correction  of  political  wrongs  committed  by 
earlier  ruling  minorities  who  were  too  narrow  and  self-seeking  to 
interest  themselves  in  the  commons,  and  partly  through  the  desire 
of  sincere,  humanitarian,  statesmen,  as  Pericles,  for  the  economic, 
cultural  and  political  elevation  of  the  masses.  The  evils  of  democ- 
racy, however,  were  aggravated  by  the  operation  of  causes  which 
fifth-century  statesmen  could  not  well  foresee.  Individualistic  de- 
velopments, beginning  in  earlier  time,  drew  a  large  proportion  of  the 
citizens  of  the  wealthier  classes  from  politics.  Many  young  men 
of  eupatrid  rank  now  cared  only  for  gambling  and  low  company. 
A  bourgeoisie,  recruited  from  the  poorest  class  and  nursed  into  great 
prosperity  by  an  expanding  city  economy,  could  not  neglect  business 

5  Practical  meaning  of  democracy;   Arist.   Polit.  iii.  8.  3,  1279  b;   cf.   iii.   7.  5.     Five  kinds 
of  democracy;  iv.  4.  22-6,  1292  b  f.     Other  classifications;  iv.  6.  1-6;  i.  4.  3-7,  1292  b,   1298  a. 

6  H.  Civ.  no.  142  (Arist.  Polit.);  Arist.  Polit.  iv.  6.  2  f.,  1292  b;   Francotte,  L'lndustrie,  I. 
52  f. 


SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  STATE  415 

for  the  service  of  the  State  in  office  or  assembly.  The  duality  of 
thought  and  action,  noticeable  in  Euripides,  became  more  and  more 
jjronounced,  as  life  grew  more  complex  and  specialized.  In  the  degree 
therefore  that  a  man  devoted  himself  to  philosophy  or  literature  he 
unfitted  himself  for  everything  else.  The  thinker  stood  as  far  re- 
moved  from  the  politician  as  the  orator  from  the  general.  The 
pursuit  of  individualistic  aims  deprived  the  State  of  the  service  and 
guidance  of  its  more  intelligent  and  cultured  citizens,  leaving  it  to 
the  mercy  of  professional  politicians,  who  commanded  the  votes  of 
the  poorer  and  less  enlightened  minority.  For  the  political  evils  of 
which  fourth-century  writers  bitterly  complain,  they  and  their  class 
were  chiefly  responsible,  inasmuch  as  their  own  aloofness  from  public 
affairs  left  the  democracy  unbridled.  The  conditions  lamented  by 
conservatives,  however,  were  a  symptom  and  a  cause  of  a  vast  political 
evolution  slowly  and  silently  under  way  throughout  Hellas.  The 
broadening  humanity,  the  waning  interest  in  local  politics,  and  the 
aversion  of  cultured  citizens  from  military  life  meant  the  decline  of 
the  polls  and  the  development  of  a  larger  and  more  liberal  State 
system,  the  preparation  of  a  transition  from  regional  to  world  politics, 
from  racial  to  cosmopolitan  culture. '^ 

Athens,  a  highly  developed  democracy.  It  is  only  in  the  case 
of  Athens  that  existing  knowledge  affords  a  view  of  the  working  of  a 
highly  developed  democracy  in  sufficient  detail  to  enable  us  to  pro- 
nounce a  judgment  of  its  character.  For  the  reason  already  given 
ancient  historians  and  philosophers  were  generally  unfavorable, 
whereas  the  speakers  before  the  assembly  and  courts  were  disposed 
to  flatter  the  masses.  Allowance  has  therefore  to  be  made  for  the  bias  • 
of  both  classes  of  authorities. 

The  violence  of  the  Four  Hundred  and  still  more  of  the  Thirty 
had  disgusted  the  moderates  with  oligarchic  methods  and  had  as- 
sured the  popular  government  a  permanent  lease  of  power.  The 
democratic  restoration  in  403  was  therefore  thoroughgoing.  Against 
an  effort,  on  the  one  hand,  to  limit  the  franchise  to  landowners 
and  on  the  other,  to  extend  the  citizenship  to  all,  including  even 
slaves,  who  had  aided  the  overthrov^  of  the  Thirty,  conservative  states- 
men forced  the  government  into  its  old  democratic  ruts.  Their  re- 
newal of  the  Periclean  law  of  451,  which  limited  the  citizenship  to 

7  Revenues  as  a  democratic  factor;  Arist.  Polit.  iv.  6.  5,  1293  a.  Evolution  of  democracy; 
H.  Civ.  no.  141  (Arist.  Polit.).  Individualistic  tendencies;  p.  399  ff.  Young  eupatrids; 
Xen.  Econ.  1.  17  ff.    Plato's  condemnation  of  democracy;  Rep.  vi.  488;  viii.  555  ff.  et  pass. 


416  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

those  whose  parents  were  both  Athenians,  was  dictated  partly  by 
a  narrow  selfishness  of  the  majority,  partly  too  by  religious  interest 
in  the  purity  of  the  race.  In  fact  the  political  restoration  is  to  be 
connected  with  the  revival  of  religion  apparent  in  the  last  drama  of 
Euripides.  The  condemnation  and  death  of  Socrates,  399,  on  the 
charge  of  repudiating  the  gods  of  the  State,  of  introducing  new 
divinities,  and  of  corrupting  the  youth,  the  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of 
this  revival,  of  the  staunchest  defender  of  religion  and  of  virtue 
among  the  enlightened,  was  a  strange  piece  of  historical  irony  and  per- 
haps the  severest  blow  inflicted  by  ancient  democracy  upon  itself; 
for  nothing  so  alienated  the  intellectual  class.* 

The  democratic  government  proclaimed   to  those  who  had  sided 
witli  the  Thirty  an  amnesty,  which  was  generally  kept.     Democrats 
who  had  been  robbed  of  their  estates  lived  as  peaceful  neighbors  of 
aristocrats  who  had  shared  the  spoils.     Some  hard   feeling,   stirred 
especially  by  renegades  from  the  party  of  the  Thirty,  hindered  oli- 
garchs from  office  and  prejudiced  juries  against  them;  but  all  hatred 
gradually  died  out  with  the  generation  that  had  lived  through  the 
crisis.^ 
[/  Pay  for  attendance  at  Assembly.     It  was  the  growing  disinclin- 
/f  ation  to  politics  as  well  as  the  principle  that  all  State  services  should 
/    be  paid  so  that  the  poor  might  share  in  them,  which  led  Agyrrhius 
/     early  in  the  fourth  century  to  institute  a  fee  for  attendance  at  the 
/     assembly.     From  one  obol  it  was  soon  raised  to  three.     On  this  basis 
'      it  was  easy  to  reason  that  the  common  citizen  had  as  good  a  right  as 
any  to  the  public  festivals.     He  ought  therefore  to  be  given  free  ad- 
mission to  the  theatre  and  to  be  served  with  food  at  the  public  ex- 
pense while  attending  the  panathenaea  or  other  festivals,  and  even 
to  be  paid  in  money  for  the  time  he  takes  for  these  pleasures  from 
his  daily  toil.     Inevitably  the  appropriation,  at  first  moderate,  grad- 
ually increased  till  it  swallowed  up  the  entire  surplus  income  of  the 
State.     The  effect  was  to  weaken  Athens  in  her  relations  with  for- 
eigners and  to  render  the  recipients  less  capable  of  caring  for  them- 
selves.^" 

8  Democratic  restoration;  Lysias  xxxiv  with  its  Introduction;  Isaeus  vi.  47;  viii.  43; 
Arist.  Const.  Ath.  40;  Dionys.  Lysias,  32;  Schol.  Aesch.  Ctes.  195;  Timarch.  39;  Athen. 
xiii.   38.     Accusation  of  Socrates;   Xen.   Mem.   i.   1.   1. 

9  Xen.  Hell.   ii.  4.  43;   Isoc.  Callimachus,  2,  23;  Lysias,  Brother  of  Nicias,   19. 

10  Pay  for  attendance  at  assembly;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  41,  62.  The  drachma  and  nine 
obols  respectively,  mentioned  in  ch.  62,  are  probably  the  daily  fees  of  the  presidents 
(proedri).  that  of  the  private  citizen  being  three  obols;  Sundwall,  in  Klio,  Ergzb.  I.  68 
with  references.     Free  admission  to  the  theatre  was  possibly  introduced   by   Pericles   (Plut. 


SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  STATE  417 

Aristotle's  idea  of  caring  for  the  poor.  The  effort  to  allevi- 
ate the  condition  of  the  poor  is  not  itself  to  be  condemned,  but  rather 
the  improvident  method  of  distriljuting  the  aid:  "Where  there  are 
revenues,  the  demagogues  should  not  be  allowed  after  their  manner  to 
distribute  the  surplus;  the  poor  are  always  receiving  and  always  want- 
ing more  and  more,  for  such  help  is  like  water  poured  into  a  leaky 
cask.  Yet  the  true  friend  of  the  people  should  see  that  they  be  not 
too  poor,  for  extreme  poverty  lowers  the  character  of  the  democracy. 
Measures  should  be  taken  which  shall  give  them  lasting  prosperity; 
and  as  this  end  is  ecjually  the  interest  of  all  classes,  the  proceeds  of 
the  public  revenues  should  be  accumulated  and  distributed  among 
them,  if  possible,  in  such  amounts  as  may  enable  them  to  purchase 
a  little  farm,  or  at  all  events  make  a  beginning  in  trade  or  husbandry. 
If  this  benevolence  cannot  be  extended  to  all,  money  should  be  dis- 
tributed in  turn  according  to  tribes  or  other  groups,  and  meantime 
the  rich  should  pay  the  fee  for  attendance  of  the  poor  at  the  necessary 
assemblies,  and  should  in  return  be  excused  from  useless  public  serv- 
ices." " 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  passage  here  quoted  Aristotle  holds  that 
the  poor  owed  their  condition  to  no  fundamental  defect  of  their  own, 
and  that  if  given  a  new  start  in  life,  they  would  as  a  rule  prove  them- 
selves worthy  of  the  aid.  In  fact  he  nowhere  blames  the  people  for 
the  faults  of  the  democracy.  "  Even  if  they  have  no  share  in  office, 
the  poor,  provided  only  they  are  not  outraged  or  deprived  of  their 
property,  will  be  quiet  enough."  ^-  "  Whereas  wealth  and  power," 
says  Isocrates,  "  are  attended  and  followed  by  a  lack  of  sense  and  by 
license,  want  and  a  humble  position  bring  with  them  prudence  and 
moderation;  so  that  it  is  hard  to  decide  which  of  these  two  lots  one 
would  prefer  to  leave  as  a  legacy  to  one's  children."  ^^  For  the  short- 
comings of  democracy  the  demagogues  were  chiefly  responsible.^*  The 
commons  lacked  the  special  knowledge  now  more  necessary  than 
ever  for  judging  of  foreign  policies.  In  such  matters  they  had  to 
trust  their  leaders,  who  often  misinformed  them.  In  domestic  affairs, 
too,  unprincipled   demagogues  often   attempted  to  work   upon  their 

Per.   9).     The  theoric   (festival)    fund  under  Eubulus;    Theopomp.    Phil.,   FHG.    I.   293,   95, 
96  b;   Athen.   iv.   61;    Justin  vi.   9   (doubtless  exaggerated). 

11  Arist.   Polit.   vi.   5.    7-9,   1320  (H.   Civ.   p.    467   f.). 

12  Arist.   Polit.   iv.    13.   8,    1297   b.     Favorable   opinion  of  Xenophon,    quoting  Socrates;   p. 
400.     Plato's  opinion  adverse;  Rep.  viii.  563  d. 

13  Area  p.   4.   f. 

14  Arist.   Polit.   v.   5.    1   ff.,   11;   vi.   5.   3   f. ;   910,    1305  a,    1310  a,    1320  a. 


\l 


418  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

political  prejudices  and  their  covetousness  to  the  detriment  especially 
of  wealthy  individuals. 

Confiscated  property.  It  was  charged  that  pettifoggers  sometimes 
appealed  to  the  juries  to  condemn  the  accused  on  the  ground  that  if 
his  property  should  not  be  confiscated,  there  would  be  no  means  of 
paying  them  for  their  service.  The  first  intimation  of  this  practice 
appears  in  the  Knights  of  Aristophanes/^  early  in  the  Peloponnesian 
war.  In  the  period  now  before  us  a  speaker  addresses  the  jury  as  fol- 
lows: "  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  you  have  often  heard  these 
men  say,  whenever  they  wished  you  to  condemn  someone  unjustly,  that 
unless  you  vote  the  condemnation  of  those  whom  they  order,  your 
pay  will  be  lacking."  ^^  Another  asserts  that  the  council,  when 
in  need  of  money  for  the  current  administration,  was  inclined  to  con- 
demn the  men  impeached  before  it,  and  to  confiscate  their  property.^  ^ 
Such  cases  must  have  occurred.  One  or  two  instances,  however,  in 
a  half  century  would  suffice  to  account  for  the  charges  that  appear  in 
literature.  The  speakers  above  mentioned  assume  that  pleas  of  the 
kind  are  repugnant  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  jurors  whom  they  are 
addressing,  hence  they  could  not  often  have  been  used  effectively;  and 
in  fact  we  do  not  know  by  name  any  person  who  thus  suffered.  To 
the  honor  of  the  democracy  Aristotle  has  testified:  "  Even  the  juris- 
diction has  passed  from  the  council  to  the  people;  and  in  this  mat- 
ter they  seem  to  act  rightly;  for  the  Few  are  more  corruptible  than  the 
Many  whether  by  money  or  by  influence."  ^^  It  was  a  grievous  wrong 
if  one  or  two  innocent  men  were  put  to  death  by  the  avarice  of  coun- 
cil or  jury,  but  it  is  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  condemning  the  Athenian 
democracy;  for  in  no  age  or  country  has  the  administration  of  justice 
been  perfect. 
/  Class  consciousness.  In  the  old  days  of  the  democracy  many  a 
man  of  wealth  lived  moderately,  nearly  on  a  level  with  the  poor,  and 
was  notably  generous  and  hospitable.  To  the  end  of  the  present 
period  a  large  class  of  the  wealthy  retained  the  same  character. 
During  the  fourth  century,  however,  the  growth  of  culture  and  of  lux- 
ury developed  a  class  consciousness.  Priding  themselves  on  their 
refinement,  educated  men  of  means  despised  those  who  in  youth  had 
been  compelled  to  labor  instead  of  attending  school.     In  this  spirit 

IS  1358  ff. 

ifi  Lysias,  Against  Epicrates,  1. 

17  Lysias,  Against  Nicomachus,  22;  corroborated  by  Arist.  Folit.  v.  5.  5;  vi.  5.  3,  1305  c, 
1320  a. 
l»  Const.  Ath.  41;  cf.  Guiraud,  Prop.  fonc.  336  ff. 


SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  STATE  419 

Demosthenes  the  orator  contrasts  his  own  early  life  with  that  of  his 
opponent  Aeschines.  After  rehearsing  his  own  education  and  his  en- 
trance upon  a  public  career,  he  turns  upon  his  adversary  with 
these  words:  "  But  you,  august  man,  who  now  spit  upon  others, 
consider  what  fortune  you  enjoyed,  through  which  in  boyhood  you 
were  reared  in  dire  poverty,  assisting  your  father  in  the  school-room, 
grinding  ink,  sponging  off  seats,  and  sweeping  the  room,  occupying 
the  post  of  a  slave,  not  of  a  free  lad.  .  .  .  Compare  these  two  lives, 
Aeschines,  yours  and  mine,  with  each  other,  calmly  but  not  in  bitter- 
ness, and  ask  these  jurors  which  of  the  two  fortunes  each  one  of  them 
would  prefer.  You  taught  reading;  I  attended  school.  You  per- 
formed initiations;  I  was  initiated.  You  danced;  I  was  choregus. 
You  were  a  public  scribe,  I  a  public  orator.  You  were  a  third-rate 
actor;  I  witnessed  the  play.  You  failed  in  your  part,  and  I  hissed 
you."  ^« 

The  antipathy  was  increased  not  only  by  the  widening  differentia- 
tion of  society  into  rich  and  poor,  educated  and  ignorant,  but  also 
by  the  gathering  of  the  people  into  the  city.  "  Whoever  is  poor  and 
wants  to  live  in  the  City  brings  all  the  more  discouragement  upon 
himself,  for  when  he  beholds  a  man  who  is  able  to  live  in  luxury  and 
ease,  he  is  then  in  a  position  to  see  in  his  own  case  how  wretched 
and  toilsome  is  the  life  he  leads."  -°  The  sight,  too,  of  many  increas- 
ing their  wealth  by  dishonest  means  created  in  the  poor  the  exagger- 
ated notion  that  fortunes  accumulated  by  individuals  were  all  due  to 
cheating : 

Chremylus.     I've  been  a  virtuous  and  religious  man, 

Yet  always  poor  and  luckless. 
Cario.     So  you  have. 
Chrem.     While  temple-breakers,  orators,  informers, 

And  knaves  grow  rich  and  prosper. 
Car.     So  they  do.21 

The  reason  is  that  Plutus  is  blind,  and  has  made  a  wrong  distribu- 
tion of  wealth.  By  passing  a  night  in  the  temple  of  Asclepius  he 
receives  his  sight,  and  proceeds  forthwith  to  a  bestowal  of  this 
world's  goods  upon  the  deserving.-- 

19  H.  Civ.  no.  152  (Demosth.  On  the  Crown).  A  significant  fact  is  that  the  jury,  though 
composed  of  plain  people,  approved  of  these  sentiments  in  Demosthenes;  they  preferred 
the  leadership  of  men  who  possessed  this  kind  of  superiority. 

20  Menander,    frag.    405   ff. 

21  Aristoph.   Plutus,  28-31,  acted  at  Athens  in  388. 

22  H.  Civ.  no.  78  (Aristoph.  Plut.). 


420  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Socialistic  tendencies.  Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  world 
were  the  masses  so  conscious  of  these  economic-social  contrasts  or  of 
their  own  power.  Under  these  circumstances  it  was  but  natural  that 
they,  the  controlling  majority,  should  bring  to  the  front  a  program 
more  or  less  socialistic.  Upon  one  thing  at  least  they  were  deter- 
mined: that  the  wealthy  man  in  office  should  no  longer  exploit  them 
for  his  own  profit,  that  out  of  office  the  rich  should  not  make  an 
insolent  display  of  their  wealth.  In  illustration  we  may  cite  the  law 
of  Lycurgus,  which  ordered  that  women  should  not  ride  in  carriages 
to  Eleusis  at  the  time  of  the  festival,  "  lest  the  poor  appear  more 
despicable  than  the  rich."  '^  Another  plank  in  their  platform  re- 
quired the  wealthy,  willing  or  unwilling,  to  contribute  liberally  from 
their  abundance  in  the  performance  of  both  naval  and  festive  liturgies 
and  in  the  payment  of  direct  taxes  in  time  of  war  according  to  their 
means.  The  amount  of  pressure  thus  brought  upon  the  rich  varied  in 
different  States  and  in  the  same  State  at  different  times.  In  Athens 
the  abundance  of  the  ordinary  revenues,  added  to  the  relative  mild- 
ness of  political  feeling,  generally  assured  to  the  wealthy  an  immunity 
from  exactions.  There  as  elsewhere,  however,  it  was  felt  by  many 
that  inequality  of  property  was  the  root  of  all  evil,  for  which  the  only 
remedy  was  communism.-*  The  relation  of  the  State  to  private  prop- 
erty can  be  clearly  understood  by  taking  into  account  the  nature  of 
the  polls  as  contrasted  with  that  of  the  modern  nation.  Because  of 
its  general  insecurity  and  lack  of  resources  the  city-state  necessarily 
exercised  far  more  rigorously  and  arbitrarily  its  ultimate  right  of 
ownership  over  everything  belonging  to  the  citizens.  This  basic 
proprietorship  it  applied  in  the  levy  of  extraordinary  taxes,  in  tem- 
porary monopolies  of  some  or  all  saleable  commodities,  in  forced  loans 
and  contributions,  and  in  various  other  ways.  If  the  distribution  of 
these  burdens  was  but  approximately  equitable,  the  citizens  could  not 
complain,  as  property,  life,  family,  and  everything  held  dear  rested 
wholly  upon  the  security  of  the  State.^^ 

The  Athenian  democracy  in  the  fourth  century.  The  prob- 
lem as  to  the  soundness  or  decadence  of  the  Athenian  democracy  in 
the   fourth   century  has  long   been   under  controversy.     One   of  the 

23  Pseud.  Plut.  Ten  Orators,  482  c;  Aelian,  Var.  hist.  xiii.  24  (the  penalty  was  6,000 
drachmas). 

24  P.   87,  90. 

2.5  Illustrations  of  these  extraordinary  methods  of  raising  money  are  given  by  Pseud. 
Arist.  Econ.  ii.  The  subject  is  well  presented  by  Riezler,  Ueber  Finanzen  unci  MonopoU 
im  alten  Griechenland. 


SOCIAL  ASPECTS  OF  THE  STATE  421 

most  pertinent  (juestions  involved  is  whether  a  citizen  of  Athens  in 
this  period,  a  man  of  honesty  and  good  intentions,  gifted  with  a  fair 
degree  of  patriotism,  public  spirit,  and  neighborliness,  could  enjoy 
an  acquired  or  inherited  estate  in  peace  and  haj)piness.  Was  the 
State  sufficiently  free  from  social  spite  and  intolerance  and  from 
governmental  oppression  and  exaction  to  guarantee  even  to  the  wealthy 
individual  "liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness?"  The  answer, 
derived  from  an  examination  of  the  facts,  can  only  be  an  emphatic  af- 
firmative.^" It  would  be  a  mistake  to  identify  Athens  with  the  ex-  V^ 
treme  democracy  described  by  Aristotle.  The  normal  character  of 
her  population  and  the  equilibrium  of  her  social  classes  have  been  set 
forth  in  the  preceding  chapter.  The  numerous  middle  class  together 
with  the  wealthy  ordinarily  controlled  politics.  The  absence  of  pay 
for  attendance  at  the  assembly  of  the  deme  threw  this  institution  into 
the  hands  of  the  well-to-do.  who  thus  managed  the  business  of  their 
rural  communities  and  held  its  offices.  With  some  modifications  the 
principle  held  for  the  State.  The  emoluments  derived  from  attendance 
at  the  assembly  and  from  membership  of  the  council,  were  less  than 
the  daily  wages  of  an  unskilled  workman,  whereas  the  salaries  of  of- 
ficials fell  short  of  the  mechanic's  pay.  Hence  it  was  that  the  as- 
sembly and  the  council  were  filled  as  a  rule  by  men  in  good  circum- 
stances. The  orators  who  addressed  the  assembly  and  guided  its 
opinions,  though  generally  private  citizens,  were  as  a  rule  men  of 
property.  In  fact  the  orators  and  officials  came  largely  from  families 
which  through  generations  of  public  service  had  shown  patriotism 
combined  with  a  fitness  for  administrative  work.^^ 

Ancient  democracy  from  the  evolutionary  standpoint.  In- 
stead of  condemning  ancient  democracy  because  in  some  or  in  all 
respects  it  fell  short  of  present  governmental  systems,  it  is  fairer  to 
estimate  its  value  from  the  evolutionary  standpoint;  and  in  this  view 
we  cannot  but  admire  the  vast  advance  made  by  the  Greek  States  in 
the  liberty,  intelligence,  and  manliness  of  their  citizens  over  the 
dead  level  of  Orientalism.  There  is  in  the  world  of  today  no  intelli- 
gent human  being  who  would  not  prefer  to  have  been  a  common  citi- 

26  For  example,  Xenophon,  Economist,  presents  two  Athenian  types:  Critobulus,  the  pol- 
itician of  moderate  means,  and  Ischomachus.  a  model  citizen  in  good  circumstances.  Both 
give  generously  to  the  State  and  both  are  content  with  the  situation.  The  property  of  the 
former,  though  neglected,  remains  undiminished;  that  of  the  latter  increases. 

27  The  denies  governed  by  the  rich;  Haus.soullier,  Vir  viunic.  59-62.  Attendance  at 
assembly  three  obols;  p.  313  above.  The  common  councillor  received  five  obols,  the  pry- 
tanis  one  drachma;  Arist,  Const.  Ath.  62.  This  whole  subject  is  admirably  treated  by 
Sundwall,  in  Klio,  Ergzb.  I. 


422  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

zen  of  Athens  rather  than  of  Persia  or  Egypt.  From  the  seventh  to 
the  fourth  century  the  steady  advance  of  democracy  brought  its  benefits 
to  an  ever-widening  circle  of  citizens.  Progress  was  then  blocked  in 
part  by  a  religious  conservatism,  which  in  403  forced  the  wheels  of 
the  restored  democracy  back  into  fifth-century  grooves,  in  part  by  crude 
socialistic  experimentation ;  but  it  is  absurd  to  say  that  from  this  con- 
dition there  could  be  no  recovery,  that  of  all  people  the  Greeks  alone 
were  incapable  of  learning  by  experience.  By  no  means  the  least 
evil  in  the  situation  was  the  indifferent  or  hostile  attitude  of  some 
intellectuals  or  the  reactionary  doctrines  of  others,  who  like  Isocrates 
sought  a  cure  for  all  internal  ills  in  a  return  to  the  polity  of  Cleis- 
thenes  or  of  Solon.  If  centuries  were  required  for  the  building  up  of 
modem  parliamentary  states,  Athens  needed  at  least  a  few  more 
generations  in  which  to  accommodate  justice  and  equality  to  the  rule  of 
the  Many. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Barker,  Political  Theories  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  (Methuen,  1906)  ;  Beloch, 
II  (1st  ed.),  ch.  xi,  Attische  Politik,  110-162;  Dickinson,  Greek  View  of  Life, 
chs.  ii,  iii;  Diinning,  History  of  Political  Theories  (Macmilian,  1902);  Fergu- 
son, Greek  Imperialism,  97-114;  Francotte,  Melanges  du  droit  public  grec 
(Liege,  1910);  Haussoullier,  La  vie  viunicipale  en  Attique  (Paris:  Thovin, 
1884);  Holm,  III,  ch.  xiii;  Pickard-Cambridge,  Demosthenes  and  the  Lost 
Days  of  Greek  Freedom  (London,  1914)  ;  Pohlmann,  Griech.  Gcsch.,  ch.  x, 
Sozialismus;  Whibley,  Companion,  360-421;  Wilamowitz-Moellendorf  von  and 
Niese,  B.,  Staat  und  Gesellschaft  der  Griechen  und  Romer. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY 

I.     Art 

Value  of  art  for  an  appreciation  of  Greek  history.  For  an  ap- 
preciation of  Greek  history  the  great  value  of  art  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  a  genuine  expression  of  Hellenic  character,  not  merely  of  the 
great  static  essentials,  but  also  of  the  more  delicate  variations  from 
age  to  age.^  Some  of  the  forces  at  work  in  reshaping  the  art  of  the 
fourth  century  were  political.  Lacking  imperial  revenues,  the  Athen- 
ian State  was  poorer  than  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  and  could  spend 
proportionally  less  on  decorative  works.  The  social  democracy,  too, 
in  Athens  as  elsewhere,  required  a  considerable  share  of  the  public 
income  for  the  direct  benefit  of  the  masses. 

Individualism  in  art.  These  facts  help  account  for  the  con- 
struction of  great  stone  theatres  and  stadia  in  various  Hellenic  cities 
to  the  detriment  of  temple  building.  Many  of  the  wealthy  class  pre- 
ferred to  spend  their  income  on  the  erection  and  maintenance  of  more 
commodious  and  attractive  dwellings,  on  funerary  monuments  or 
sculptured  portraits  of  themselves  and  their  kin.  The  growing  in- 
dividualism of  art  may  be  traced  partly  to  these  private  enterprises 
but  far  more  to  the  general  trend  of  education,  \\4th  the  enlargement 
of  knowledge  the  individual  became  freer  from  State,  society,  and 
tradition,  and  more  conscious  of  his  separate  existence.  This  mental 
growth,  in  and  out  of  philosophy,  was  accompanied  by  introspection, 
an  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  individual,  a  study  of  the  person- 
ality and  of  its  character  and  modes  of  expression.  Pheidias,  it  has 
been  said,  gave  the  statue  a  soul,  or  more  concretely,  endowed  the 
marble  with  thought  and  feeling.     This  inner  being,  however,  was  not 

1  The  sources  for  Greek  art  are  essentially  the  surviving  works,  described  and  illus- 
trated in  the  modem  writings  listed  at  the  close  of  this  chapter.  See  also  the  pictures  in 
the  following  text.  Among  the  ancient  writings  on  art  are  Pliny,  Natural  History,  espe- 
cially bks.  xxxiii-xxxvi;  precious  stones;  xxxvii  (see  K.  Jex-Blake,  The  Elder  Pliny's 
Chapters  on  the  History  of  Art,  with  commentary  by  Sellers  (Macmillan,  1896);  excerpts 
in  H.  Civ.  nos.  169-71)  and  Pausanias,  Description  of  Greece  (see  J.  G.  Frazer's  translation 
with  elaborate  commentary  and  indices,  6  vols.   (Macmillan). 

423 


424  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

a  personal  but  a  communal  aspiration.  History  had  to  await  a  Praxi- 
teles and  a  Scopas  for  an  expression  of  the  transitory  thought  and 
feeling  of  the  individual. 

Praxiteles.  By  mechanical  criteria  it  is  usually  possible  to  dis- 
tinguish Praxitelean  art  from  that  of  earlier  times.  A  standing  figure 
of  the  preceding  century  was  essentially  erect,  any  curve  being  a  mere 
deviation  from  the  vertical.  A  Praxitelean  statue,  however,  usually 
leans  against  a  tree  trunk  or  other  support,  which  is  thus  made  a  part 
of  the  sculpture.  By  such  means,  too,  the  curve  becomes  an  essential 
rather  than  an  accidental  feature.  The  need  of  a  prop  is  due  to  the 
use  of  marble  in  place  of  bronze.  Equally  tangible  is  the  difference 
in  the  treatment  of  drapery.  Whereas  in  the  preceding  century  the 
dress  fell  in  sharply  outlined  parallel  folds,  in  the  Praxitelean  drap- 
ery the  greater  folds  vary  in  direction  and  in  prominence,  and  pass 
into  one  another  through  smaller  curves.  The  treatment  of  the  hair 
undergoes  a  corresponding  change.  In  the  Pheidian  period  the  short 
hair  of  men  lay  flat  on  the  head,  running  in  parallel  lines  and  ter- 
minating in  crisp  curls;  that  of  Praxiteles  is  wrought  throughout  in 
fluffy  locks.  The  surface  of  the  body,  too,  is  rendered  with  a  nat- 
ural elasticity  equalled  in  no  other  extant  sculpture.  All  these  external 
features  are  due  to  a  more  careful  study  of  texture,  whether  of  cloth, 
hair,  or  human  flesh,  and  to  an  advancing  technique. 

Hermes  of  Praxiteles.  The  soul  of  a  Praxitelean  statue,  however, 
we  can  recognize  but  can  explain  in  no  mechanical  way.  The  body 
has  a  restful  attitude;  the  person  seems  happy,  musing,  content  with 
himself  and  the  world.  The  only  extant  original  statue  is  a  mutilated 
Hermes  found  in  an  excavation  at  Olympia.  On  his  left  arm  he 
holds  the  infant  Dionysus,  with  his  right  hand  he  raises  high  a  bunch 
of  grapes  or  other  object  to  amuse  the  child.  Hermes  is  not  looking 
at  Dionysus,  however,  but  at  some  object  beyond,  momentarily  lost 
in  pleasant  thought.  A  youth  in  splendid  athletic  training  and  ac- 
customed to  activity,  he  is  for  the  time  being  in  repose.  All  the  tech- 
nical qualities,  above  described,  this  statue  represents  to  perfection. 
It  is  a  noteworthy  fact,  too,  that  in  viewing  this  piece  of  art  we  forget 
that  we  are  looking  upon  a  god,  for  we  can  regard  him  as  only  a  per- 
fect human  youth.  The  striving  of  Hellenic  genius  for  individuality, 
thus  displayed,  in  no  way  tended  toward  the  elevation  of  man  to  divin- 
ity, but  achieved  instead  the  reduction  of  God  to  the  human  plane. 
Far  from  steeling  the  will  to  endurance  or  to  heroic  effort,  it  encour- 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  425 

aged  pleasant  relations  with  the  deity  and  a  quiet  contentment  with 
life.  This  was  in  brief  the  prevailing  spirit  of  Athens  in  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century,  within  the  lifetime  of  Praxiteles. 

Aphrodite  of  Cnidus.  His  most  famous  woman  statue  is  the 
Aphrodite  of  Cnidus,  of  which  we  have  hut  a  Roman  copy.  The  at- 
titude of  musing  is  Praxitelean ;  but  all  the  finer  qualities  of  the  orig- 
inal were  lost  in  copying.  It  is  extremely  unfortunate  that  we  are 
obliged  to  depend  almost  wholly  upon  poor  Roman  copies  for  our 
acquaintance  with  the  works  of  the  greatest  sculptors.  Because  of 
the  inferior  medium  of  contact  we  are  in  no  position  to  appreciate 
the  extraordinary  enthusiasm  aroused  by  the  original  of  this  Aphro- 
dite. 

Scopas.  An  artist  of  equal  genius  was  Scopas.  Though  he  flour- 
ished during  the  first  half  of  the  fourth  century,  and  was  therefore 
older  than  Praxiteles,  it  is  customary  to  treat  of  him  later  because 
he  seems  to  us  to  represent  a  wider  departure  from  the  Pheidian  type 
and  a  nearer  approach  to  Hellenistic  art.  Like  Praxiteles  he  wrought 
in  marble.  The  only  originals  that  we  can  in  all  probability  assign 
to  him  are  two  badly  mutilated  heads  from  a  temple  in  Tegea  which 
he  is  known  to  have  constructed.  In  contrast  with  the  quiet  musing 
of  the  Praxitelean  statue,  that  of  Scopas  is  all  feeling,  passion,  ex- 
pressed primarily  by  the  face  and  in  a  less  degree  by  the  attitude  of 
the  body.  The  eye  is  sunken  deeply  beneath  the  brow  and  the  sur- 
rounding flesh.  From  this  shadow  it  gazes  fixedly  on  a  definite 
object.  The  nostrils  are  dilated  and  the  mouth,  partly  open,  seems 
to  indicate  panting.  The  body  is  tense.  The  whole  person  is 
wrought  up  to  a  high  pitch  of  anger,  fear,  or  other  passion.  These 
qualities  are  all  discoverable  in  his  Meleager,  through  the  extant 
Roman  copies.  Though  a  Parian,  Scopas  lived  for  a  time  at  Athens, 
and  we  can  discover  his  spirit  in  the  contemporary  youths  of  Athenian 
grave  reliefs,  not  only  in  the  shadowy  eyes  but  also  in  the  intensity  of 
the  general  expression. 

Lysippus.  A  further  advance  was  made  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
same  century  by  Lysippus  of  Sicyon,  who  is  said  to  have  wrought 
fifteen  hundred  statues,  all  in  bronze.  He  is  best  represented  by  an 
excellent  copy  of  his  Apoxyomenus.  It  is  an  athlete  engaged  in 
scraping  the  oil  and  sand  from  his  body  after  a  contest  in  wrestling, 
and  from  this  circumstance  the  statue  has  derived  its  name.  Although 
the  copy  is  in  marble,  it  well  expresses  all  the  admirable  qualities  of 


426  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  original  bronze.  We  notice  in  the  first  place  its  wide  departure 
from  the  Polycleitan  canon  in  the  proportions  of  the  body;  ^  the  work 
of  Lysippus  has  a  smaller  head,  and  is  taller  and  slimmer.  Another 
noteworthy  fact  is  that  whereas  the  Doryphorus  of  Polycleitus  is  to  be 
seen  from  the  front  only,  and  hence  is  comparatively  flat  with  the 
sides  nearly  at  right  angles,  the  work  of  Lysippus  is  to  be  seen  from 
every  direction  and  is  therefore  round.  In  brief  the  artist  has  made 
an  advance  from  the  surface  effect  of  the  earlier  masters  to  the  effect 
of  roundness  and  depth.  We  discover  in  the  earlier  work  "  an  im- 
pression of  monumental  repose  and  of  collective  massive  strength;  in 
the  latter,  that  of  restless  abundant  vitality,  intense  energy  and  high 
development  of  every  power."  ^  From  what  has  been  said  it  is  clear 
that  the  study  of  Lysippus  should  proceed  from  a  consideration  of 
Polycleitus.  He  has  points  of  contact  also  with  Praxiteles  and  Sco- 
pas;  for  his  happy  spirit  recalls  the  former,  his  intensity  the  latter. 
In  the  creation  of  a  buoyant  joy  he  is  distinctly  original. 

Portrait  sculpture.  In  no  department  of  art  does  the  growing 
individualism  display  itself  so  clearly  as  in  portrait  sculpture.  Be- 
fore the  age  of  Pericles  images  even  of  the  most  famous  men  were 
wholly  lacking  in  realism;  not  Miltiades  or  Themistocles  was  so  de- 
tached from  his  community  as  to  call  for  an  individual  memorial  of 
his  achievements.  The  idea  appeared  but  faintly  in  the  "  Pericles  " 
by  the  artist  Cresilas;  yet  this  herm  represents  the  typical  general 
and  statesman  far  more  than  the  particular  person.  During  the  gen- 
eration that  followed  Pericles,  however,  the  interest  in  eminent  men  so 
increased  as  to  bring  forth  scultpured  portraits  of  notable  individual- 
ity. The  head  of  Socrates  shows  his  great  intellectual  power;  the 
face  of  Euripides  reveals  deep  spirituality.  Throughout  the  fourth 
century  the  tendency  continued  to  grow.  Sculptors  who  worked  with 
success  on  a  contemporary  Plato  or  Aristotle  essayed  as  well  to  re- 
produce the  features  of  a  man  of  the  near  past  or  of  remote  persons 
such  as  Homer  and  Sappho.  In  the  latter  case  the  portraits  were 
necessarily  ideal.  The  statue  of  Sophocles  in  the  Lateran  Museum 
may  be  taken  as  an  example  of  the  idealization  of  a  recent  character. 
Shortly  after  his  death  a  statue,  doubtless  realistic,  was  erected  by  his 

2  P.   348. 

3  Amelung  and  Holzinger,  Museums  and  Ruitis  of  Rome,  I.  12.  Recently  it  has  been 
asserted  that  our  nearest  approach  to  Lysippus  is  through  the  statue  of  a  certain  Agias 
found  at  Delphi  and  said  to  be  a  copy  of  a  work  by  this  great  master.  This  view,  how- 
ever, is  seriously  questioned;  Wolters,  Sitzb.  Miincli.  Akad.  1913,  Abhdl.  4;  of.  Helbig, 
Fiihrer,  I.  19  f.  The  Agias  may  be  a  far  earlier  work  of  Lysippus  or  may  belong  to  an 
unknown  sculptor. 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  427 

son.  and  in  this  way  the  features  of  the  j:;reat  dramatist  were  per- 
petuated. The  figure  now  under  consideration,  however,  aimed  to 
express  the  brilliance,  the  power,  and  the  serene  poise,  rather  than  any 
physical  peculiarities,  of  the  tragedian. 

With  the  establishment  of  monarchy  dawned  a  new  era  in  portrai- 
ture, when  Lysippus  embodied  in  bronze  the  fiery  spirit  and  the 
superhuman  ambition  of  Alexander.  Henceforth  the  rulers  of  man- 
kind were  to  have  their  features  immortalized  not  only  in  sculpture 
but  on  the  face  of  coins,  where  hitherto  the  gods  alone  had  enjoyed 
a  place.  From  what  has  been  said  it  is  evident  that  images  of  persons 
deserve  treatment  in  a  chapter  on  art.  At  the  same  time  a  portrait, 
as  a  source  for  the  study  of  character,  connects  itself  most  nearly 
with  the  activity  of  the  person  whom  it  represents. 

Appearance  of  the  Corinthian  capital.  Meanwhile  architecture 
underwent  great  changes.  The  ornate  Corinthian  capital  made  its  ap- 
pearance.  In  a  temple  at  Tegea  Scopas  combined  the  three  orders; 
making  the  peristyle  Doric,  the  columns  of  the  pronaos  Corinthian,  and 
those  of  the  interior  Ionic,  he  infused  into  the  whole  his  own  spirit  of 
unrest.  Another  new  feature  of  temple  building  was  the  high  founda- 
tion, approached  by  many  steps  and  designed  to  give  the  structure  a 
commanding  altitude.  The  element  of  magnificence,  too,  was  pro- 
moted by  a  double  peristyle  as  well  as  by  greatly  increased  size. 
These  were  expensive  innovations  in  keeping  with  the  wealth  of 
the  Anatolian  cities  which  constructed  them.  Noteworthy  was  the 
Didymaeum,  a  temple  to  Apollo  at  Miletus.  It  was  a  hundred  years 
in  building,  and  not  even  then  completed. 

Mausoleum  at  Halicarnassus.  With  the  rise  of  monarchy  re- 
appeared gigantic  tombs,  unknown  to  Hellas  since  the  Minoan  age. 
Most  remarkable  was  the  Mausoleum,  tomb  of  Mausolus,  satrap  and 
king  of  Caria.  It  was  situated  at  Halicarnassus,  his  capital,  and  was 
built  and  adorned  by  Greek  architects  and  artists,  about  350.  The 
structure  was  nearly  square,  440  feet  in  perimeter  and  was  140 
feet  in  height.  On  a  foundation  forty-two  feet  high  rested  a  build- 
ing of  the  same  altitude  surrounded  by  an  Ionic  peristyle.  Above 
was  a  pyramidal  roof  on  the  apex  of  which  stood  the  colossal  figures 
of  the  king  and  his  queen  Artemisia  beside  a  chariot  and  four. 
Among  the  sculptures  which  decorated  the  tomb  is  a  mutilated  frieze 
representing  a  battle  between  Greeks  and  Amazons.  In  contrast 
with  the  quiet  dignity  of  earlier  decorations  this  frieze  is  amazingly 


■p- 


"SBE 


«>rMi»fi(f»fMfrrH«»fftfif,M>fff.f(t9i';f*«f>m»ff«^fN<»'-  -  - 


BATTLE  BETWEEN  THE  GREEKS  AND  THE  AMAZONS 
(Frieze  of  the  Mausoleum,  Halicarnassus) 


THE  HERMES  OF  PRAXITELES 
(Olympia) 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  429 

bold  and  spirited  in  its  flying  draperies,  tense  attitudes,  and  furious 
movements.  The  desire  for  effect  is  no  longer  subject  to  the  law  of 
moderation,  and  Hellenism  has  begun  to  suffer  from  contact  with 
foreign  life. 

II.     Literature 

New  developments  from  the  city-state.  The  central  idea  in 
Hellenism,  the  pivot  on  which  everything  Hellenic  turns,  was  the 
city-state  with  all  its  traditional  associations,  reli^ous,  social  and 
civic.  As  the  idea  declined,  there  emerged  frory  it  two  others,  the 
individual  and  the  human  race,  which  were  now  in  conflict,  now  in 
sympathy.  During  the  period  before  us  the  /city-state  continued, 
though  weakening,  whereas  individualism  and  humanism  were  grow- 
ing. These  new  developments  affected  every  human  activity,  in- 
cluding war,  politics,  art,  literature,  and  philosophy. 

From  poetry  to  prose.  In  literature  the  most  obvious  change  was 
from  poetry  to  prose.  Poetry  had  devoted  itself  extensively  to  the 
State;  the  choral  songs  were  chiefly  for  public  occasions,  and  the 
drama  appealed  to  the  entire  community.  The  decline  of  these  forms 
of  literature  meant  a  changing  relation  between  the  individual  and 
the  State,  a  shifting  of  interest  to  private  and  social  affairs,  and  from 
the  emotional  life  perpetuated  by  tradition  to  the  life  of  the  reason, 
which  is  sufficient  unto  itself  and  an  enemy  of  all  control. 

Comedy.  Of  the  lyric  and  tragic  poetry  composed  in  this  period 
almost  nothing  has  survived.*  Comedy,  poetic  in  form  though  prose 
in  spirit,  forsook  politics  for  social  life.  This  change  of  subject 
marks  the  transformation  from  Old  to  Middle  comedy,  390-320,  rep- 
resented by  two  extant  plays  of  Aristophanes,  the  Ecclesiazusae  and 
the  Plutus,  whose  contents  have  been  noticed  elsewhere.^  Along  with 
the  political  spirit  comedy  lost  its  fierce  assaults  upon  prominent  per- 
sons, its  caricatures,  gross  indecencies,  and  the  high  flights  of  lyric 
genius.  Growing  tamer  and  more  realistic,  it  attempted  in  quiet 
humor  or  good-natured  satire  to  set  forth  the  manners  and  morals  of 
the  age,  to  picture  scenes  and  characters  from  actual  life. 

4  We  have  a  fragment  of  the  Persians  of  Timotheus  the  Milesian,  recently  found  in  a 
tomb  at   Abusir,   Egypt.     See  the  edition   by  von  Wilamowitz-Moellendorff   (Leipzig,    1903). 

It  is  a  lyric  of  the  class  described  as  a  nome  —  a  narrative  of  dramatic  interest  sung  by 
one  voice  accompanied  by  a  cithara.  This  poem  was  evidently  composed  for  a  festival  in 
Ionia  in  the  opening  years  of  the  fourth  century,  while  the  Peloponnesian  troops  were 
combatting  the  Persians. 

r.  P  335.  All  the  other  comedies  of  this  period  have  been  lost,  including  the  280  or 
more  plays  of  Antiphanes  and   the  245  plays  of  Alexis. 


430  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Prose  —  its  three  great  departments.  In  this  century,  as  stated 
above,  we  have  to  do  mainly  with  prose,  which  comprised  three  great 
departments,  history,  oratory,  and  philosophy.  A  noticeable  feature 
is  the  narrow  specialization  of  the  authors,  involving  a  strict  separa- 
tion of  the  fields.  To  us  it  is  surprising,  for  example,  how  little  the 
orator  or  the  philosopher  knew  of  his  country's  past.  Before  Aristotle 
authors  were  not  learned  men  but  creative  artists.  The  most  liberal 
field  was  that  of  the  historian,  whose  search  for  the  truth  made  him 
akin  to  the  scientist,  while  his  rhetoric,  soon  to  gain  the  mastery  over 
the  historical  field,  brought  him  into  touch  with  the  orator,  and  at 
the  same  time  his  study  of  motive  and  his  analysis  of  government  gave 
him  points  of  contact  with  the  ethical  and  political  philosopher.  The 
historian  of  broad  vision,  as  heir  to  Herodotus,  composed  the  annals  of 
Hellas,  or  of  a  great  part  of  Hellas,  for  a  definite  period.  By  thus 
combining  in  treatment  a  multitude  of  city-states  he  contributed  to  the 
mental  preparation  for  a  unified  Hellenic  nation.  At  the  same  time 
the  growing  interest  in  prominent  individuals  produced  biography. 
Thus  it  was  that  Isocrates,  writing  to  King  Nicocles  of  Cyprus,  pre- 
sented a  eulogistic  account  of  the  achievements  and  character  of 
Evagoras,  father  and  predecessor  of  the  person  addressed.  This  is 
the  first  Hellenic  biography  known  to  us.® 

Xenophon,  Undoubtedly  this  particular  work,  as  well  as  the  gen- 
eral development  of  individuality  greatly  influenced  the  intellectual 
attitude  of  Xenophon,  the  fourth-century  historian  with  whom  we  have 
most  to  do.  Xenophon  (about  434-354)  was  bom  in  a  well-to-do 
family  of  pronounced  conservative  inclinations.  From  his  social 
environment  he  imbibed  the  sentiments  that  distinguished  his  rank, 
including  a  punctilious  regard  for  the  externals  of  religion,  ethical 
reflection,  refinement  of  feeling  and  speech,  an  interest  in  military 
training  and  in  out-of-door  sports,  courage,  a  dislike  of  the  multitude 
and  fidelity  to  his  class  —  in  a  word,  Hellenic  chivalry.  His  at- 
tachment to  Socrates  brought  to  fruitage  the  best  that  was  in  him,  and 
in  fact  illuminated  his  entire  life.  His  Memoirs  (Memorabilia)  of 
Socrates  faithfully  photographs  the  exterior  of  the  great  master  and 
of  his  teachings,'  though  it  fails  to  penetrate  to  the  depths.  In  fact 
Xenophon  is  in  everything  superficial.  This  work  and  the  Agesilaus 
illustrate  his  interest  in  individuals,  though  we  find  the  same  love  of 

6  Cf.  Bury,   Ancient  Greek  Historians,   153. 

7  Used,  p.  341  ff.,  as  the  fundamental  source  for  Socrates. 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  431 

biography  in  all  his  historical  writings.  The  Anabasis,  already  men- 
tioned,** is  chiefly  valuable  for  the  insight  it  affords  us  into  the  com- 
position and  psychology  of  a  mercenary  army,  drawn  from  man) 
parts  of  Hellas  and  passing  through  various  phases  of  success,  ad- 
versity, peril,  and  deliverance.  The  Hellenica,  his  chief  historical 
work,  is  a  continuation  of  Thucydides,  from  411  to  362.'-*  The  au- 
thor, banished  for  treason  from  his  native  land,  wrote  under  Lacedae- 
monian patronage.  To  his  inborn  shallowness  accordingly  he  has 
added  a  partisanship  for  Sparta  and  an  undue  admiration  for  Age- 
silaus.  Among  the  other  works  used  extensively  as  sources  in  this 
volume  are  the  Constitution  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  the  Economist, 
and  the  Ways  and  Means.  The  Cyropedia  —  education  of  Cyrus  — 
is  a  historical  romance,  in  which  the  author  sets  forth  a  model  educa- 
tion of  the  child  and  youth,  whence  emerges  the  ideal  man  and 
sovereign.  The  preservation  of  this  author's  works  is  due  to  the 
interest  of  after  ages  in  Socrates  and  to  a  wrong  standard  of  judgment 
as  to  style  and  general  worth.  In  mentioning  his  shortcomings,  how- 
ever, we  should  not  lose  sight  of  his  positive  merits.  His  interest  in 
personal  traits,  which  is  totally  wanting  in  Thucydides,  but  which 
marks  Xenophon  as  a  true  child  of  his  age,  especially  appeals  to 
the  modern  student  of  Hellenic  life  and  culture.  He  had  travelled 
much,  had  acquired  a  wide  knowledge  of  the  world;  and  in  his 
breadth  of  mind,  his  liberal  education,  and  his  ethical  and  religious 
principles  he  represents  the  best  features  of  the  educated  class  of  his 
generation. 

The  Atthides;  Aristotle,  Constitution  of  the  Athenians. 
Xenophon's  literary  style,  subjecting  itself  to  philosophic  discipline, 
betrays  almost  no  influence  of  the  rhetoric  which  flourished  in  his 
day.  Akin  were  the  chronicles,  whose  interest  lay  in  the  collection  and 
the  systematizing  of  facts.  Such  chronicles  of  Athens  were  termed 
Atthides  (plural  of  Atthis).  They  began  with  the  earliest  mythical 
kings;  and  for  the  regal  period  they  seem  to  have  grouped  events  and 
institutions  according  to  reigns.  For  the  historical  period  they  ar- 
ranged the  material  annalistically  under  the  appropriate  archons.  Far 
from  limiting  himself  to  political  and  military  happenings,  the 
athidographer  included  all  kinds  of  institutional,  personal,  and  cul- 

8  p.  361. 

9  Bks.  i,  ii  of  the  Hellenica  were  probably  written  before  his  banishment;  but  the  rest  of 
the  history  and  all  or  nearly  all  his  other  works  were  composed  in  exile.  Toward  the  end 
of  his  life  the  decree  of  banishment  was  repealed. 


432  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

tural  matter.  The  earliest  of  the  class  was  Xenophon's  contempo- 
rar>',  Cleidemus,  whose  Atthis  evidently  was  published  after  378,  but 
of  whose  work  we  have  little  information. ^°  Excepting  a  few  brief 
fragments  all  these  Att hides  have  been  lost.  To  us  the  chronicler 
of  greatest  interest  was  Androtion,  a  prominent  statesman  of  Athens, 
whose  Atthis  appeared  in  330.  It  was  the  chief  source  for  Aristotle, 
Constitution  of  the  Athenians,  published  a  few  years  afterward.  The 
latter  work  is  one  of  a  collection  of  a  hundred  and  fifty-eight  consti- 
tutional histories  of  States,  mostly  Hellenic,  composed  by  Aristotle 
with  the  collaboration  of  his  pupils.  Each  history  consisted  of  (1) 
vhe  narrative  of  constitutional  growth  to  the  philosopher's  own  time, 
(2)  a  contemporary  survey  of  the  constitution.  The  treatise  on  the 
Athenian  constitution,  the  greater  part  of  which  was  recovered  in 
Egypt  in  1890,  is  the  only  one  we  have  of  the  vast  collection. 

Growth  and  influence  of  rhetoric.  Orations  of  Lysias  and 
Isaeus.  In  order  to  take  into  account  not  simply  the  content  but 
also  the  artistic  form  of  literature,  we  must  now  give  attention  to  the 
growth  and  influence  of  rhetoric.  Since  the  origin  of  this  branch  of 
learning  ^^  oratory  inevitably  came  more  and  more  to  be  composed  by 
set  rule  and  principle.  The  extant  orations  of  Lysias,  however,  be- 
longing mainly  to  the  first  two  decades  of  the  fourth  century,  show  a 
freshness,  vigor,  and  independence  unfettered  by  rhetorical  bonds. 
Having  taken  his  lessons  of  the  rhetorician,  the  author  preserves  his 
own  mastery  of  style.  His  oration  is  artistic,  but  he  has  concealed 
his  art.  In  appearance  his  language  is  that  of  every-day  life,  in  fact 
it  is  highly  idealized.  This  orator  is  a  model  of  simple  narrative,  of 
dramatic  skill  in  adapting  speech  to  the  character  of  the  speaker  for 
whom  he  professionally  writes,  of  ethos,  the  gentle  current  of  feeling 
that  wins  the  sympathy  of  the  hearers.  These  qualities  render  his 
speeches  most  valuable,  not  only  as  pictures  of  common  life,  but  as 
psychological  views  both  of  the  individual  litigants  and  of  the  multi- 
tudinous jury.^-  A  similar  writer  of  speeches  for  others  was  Isaeus, 
perhaps  also  a  metic,  whose  extant  productions  range  nearly  through 

10  Hellanicus,  a  contemporary  of  Thucydides,  though  author  of  an  Atthis,  was  not  essen- 
tially a  chronicler,  but  a  historian  of  far  wider  range ;  H.  Civ.  p.  24  f.  Fragments  of  Clei- 
demus; FHG.  I.  359-65. 

11  P.  255,  n.   19,  347. 

12  Lysias  was  a  metic,  the  son  of  Cephalus,  who  had  come  to  Athens  from  Syracuse  on 
the  invitation  of  Pericles.  When  the  Thirty  seized  their  property,  I.ysias  undertook  as  a 
livelihood  the  profession  of  writing  speeches  for  others.  He  seems  to  have  died  in  or 
shortly  after  3S0.  Of  the  233  orations  ascribed  to  him  by  the  ancients  we  have  but  thirty- 
four.  Most  of  them  a''e  jud'cial;  see  the  excerpts  in  H.  Civ.  nos.  130  f.,  147.  On  his  life 
and  style,  see  Dionysius,  in  R.  Ci'j.  no.  16i 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  433 

the  first  half  of  the  century  (390-353).  They  have  to  do  with  family 
law,  with  cases  of  adoption  and  inheritance.  In  tone  less  winsome 
than  Lysias,  he  is  more  argumentative  and  militant.  On  the  whole  he 
clings  to  the  simple  Lysian  style,  while  revealing  the  mere  beginnings 
of  the  mature,  powerful  oratory  of  the  Demosthenic  age.^^  The 
twelve  speeches  which  we  possess  have  the  same  value  for  Athenian 
life  as  those  of  Lysias. 

Isocrates  and  his  work.  It  was  in  Isocratcs  of  Athens  that  rhet- 
oric came  to  full  maturity.  His  life  (436-338)  was  contemporary 
with  the  whole  development  of  prose  literature,  and  with  the  culmina- 
tion and  incipient  decay  of  the  city-state.  It  was  his  achievement  to 
mould  the  oration  into  a  formal  work  of  art,  comparable  to  a  Pindaric 
ode  or  to  a  piece  of  sculpture.  With  a  delicate  taste  for  literar}'  form 
he  gave  the  most  minute  and  prolonged  attention  to  the  elaboration  of 
a  nicely  adjusted  periodology,  and  to  the  exquisite  choice  and  arrange- 
ment of  words  with  a  view  to  euphony  and  rhythm.  These  qualities 
are  untranslatable.^'*  The  style  is  too  formal,  the  periods  are  too 
monotonous,  for  the  conveyance  of  anything  more  than  quiet  thought 
and  feeling.  Although  a  few  of  his  orations  are  judicial,  the  greater 
number  are  in  fact  essays,  for  reading  rather  than  for  delivery.  In 
these  works  he  set  forth  the  theory  and  the  content  of  the  culture 
which  he  upheld  both  in  his  writings  and  in  the  school  of  states- 
manship which  he  conducted.  The  young  man  who  went  forth  from 
his  school  was  to  possess  a  largeness  of  view  which  considered  the 
interest,  not  6f  his  native  city  alone,  but  of  the  entire  Hellenic  na- 
tion, a  moral  elevation  above  all  self-seeking  and  ignoble  passion, 
an  efficiency  of  method  acquired  by  long  and  careful  preparation, 
and  an  ambition  to  achieve  great  and  permanent  results. ^^  As  a  prod- 
uct of  this  culture  may  be  mentioned  the  Panegyricus,  his  master- 
piece, on  which  he  is  said  to  have  labored  ten  years.  Its  advocacy  of 
Hellenic  union  was  noticed  above. ^^  While  expressing  sentiments 
that  might  be  interpreted  as  cosmopolitan,^"  his  leading  political  prin- 
ts Cf.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  Isaeus. 

14  Jebb,  Attic  Orators,  II.  76-9,  has  done  excellently  in  a  few  short  excerpts.  The  trans- 
lation by  Freese  (cf.  H.  Civ.  no.   127)   is  heavy. 

15  Cf.   Jebb,  Attic  Orators,  11.  43  ff. 

16  P.  441.  Ten  years  in  preparation;  Quintilian,  Inst.  x.  4.  The  name  Panegyricus  indi- 
cates that  it  was  to  be  delivered  at  a  general  assembly  —  panegyris,  "  all-gathering  " —  of 
the  Greeks.     Perhaps  it  was  read  for  him  at  Olympia  in  380. 

17  Pan.  50:  "  So  far  has  our  city  left  the  rest  of  mankind  behind  her  in  thought  and 
expression  that  her  citizens  have  become  the  teachers  of  otliers,  and  have  made  the  name 
Hellenes  a  mark  no  longer  of  birth  but  of  intellect,  and  have  caused  those  to  be  called 
Hellenes  who  share  in  our  culture  rather  than  in  our  descent."  The  meaning  seems  to 
be  simply  that  culture  has  become  a  more  notable  characteristic  of  Hellas  than  blood. 


434  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ciple  of  Hellas  against  Persia  shows  him  at  heart  a  genuine  Greek, 
an  exponent  of  Nationalism  rather  than  of  humanism.  In  home 
politics  he  was  a  conservative  who  preferred  the  constitution  of  So- 
lonian  and  Cleisthenean  times,  when  the  council  of  the  Areopagus  kept 
parental  ward  over  citizens  and  magistrates,  when  offices  were  unpaid 
and  filled  by  election.  These  views  he  set  forth  in  his  Areopagiticus. 
It  need  hardly  be  said  that  re*form  by  such  reaction  is  never  wise  nor 
practicable.  Whereas  the  writings  of  this  eminent  publicist,  dis- 
tributed through  so  long  a  career  and  touching  Hellenic  life  on 
rnany  sides,  are  valuable  to  us  for  the  facts  they  convey  and  for  their 
interpretation  of  Greek  conditions  and  character,  there  can  hardly  be 
a  doubt  that  he  moulded  public  opinion  and  directed  the  general 
current  of  intelligence  chiefly  through  his  school.  In  a  three  or  four 
year  course  he  trained  his  pupils  in  oratory  and  supplied  them  with 
the  information  essential  to  public  careers.  They  came  from  all 
parts  of  Hellas,  from  regions  as  distant  as  the  Black  Sea,  Cyprus,  and 
Sicily  —  highly  endowed  youths  from  prominent  families.  Having 
completed  this  education,  a  goodly  number  became  philosophers, 
rhetoricians,  and  historians,  generals,  statesmen,  and  even  kings. 
Through  these  men  the  culture  of  Isocrates  influenced  all  the  higher 
walks  of  life  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Hellas. 

Ephorus.  By  two  of  these  pupils,  Ephorus  of  Cumae  (Aeolis) 
and  Theopompus  of  Chios,  both  born  about  380,  the  stream  of 
rhetoric  was  conducted  upon  the  historical  field.  The  principal 
work  of  Ephorus  was  a  universal  history  in  thirty  books  from  the 
Return  of  the  Heracleidae  (Dorian  invasion)  to  the  siege  of  Perin- 
thus  (340),  when  the  narrative  was  cut  short,  probably  by  death. 
Although  it  has  been  lost  with  the  exception  of  a  few  fragments,^ ^  the 
work  is  of  great  interest  to  us  as  the  chief  source  on  that  period  for 
Diodorus  and  for  the  historical  parts  of  Strabo  the  geographer.  The 
author  laid  claim  to  critical  discrimination  and  aimed  to  gain  a 
personal  knowledge  of  the  geography  and  topography  of  the  events  nar- 
rated; but  in  fact  he  has  often  marred  his  pages  with  bias  or  puerility 
in  the  treatment  of  motive,  with  exaggerations  of  numbers  in  mili- 
tary affairs,  and  similar  defects.  His  rhetorical  style  ran  in  a 
smooth  but  languid  current,  agreeable  to  the  ear  though  monotonous. 

Theopompus.  Theopompus,  his  schoolmate,  was  like  his  master 
a  writer  of  speeches  on  matters  of  public  interest.     In  the  historical 

IS  FHG.  I.  234-77. 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  435 

field  he  composed  a  HcUenica  in  twelve  books,  which  continued  the 
work  of  Thucydides,  and  a  Philip  pica  in  fifty-eight  books,  a  detailed 
history  of  his  own  time.  In  contrast  with  Ephorus  he  was  forceful 
and  passionate  and  in  style  more  oratorical.  The  extant  fragments,^" 
preserved  especially  in  Athenaeus,  show  a  noteworthy  interest  in  so- 
ciety, culture,  and  character  with  a  disproportionate  love  of  exhibiting 
the  luxuries  and  the  vices  of  mankind.  In  spite  of  the  shortcomings 
of  Ephorus  and  Theopompus  the  finding  of  the  works  of  either  au- 
thor, especially  of  the  latter,  would  doubtless  greatly  enlarge  our 
knowledge  of  Greek  history  and  civilization.  This  loss  has  been 
brought  home  to  us  by  the  discovery  of  the  fragment  of  a  history 
known  as  the  Oxyrhynchus  Hellenica  from  the  place  of  finding.-"  It 
gives  a  detailed  account  of  the  events  of  396  and  includes  a  surpris- 
ingly interesting  digression  on  the  Boeotian  federal  constitution. 
Although  we  have  not  the  means  of  determining  the  author,  we  can- 
not doubt  that  the  work  was  distinctly  superior  to  Xenophon's 
Hellenica.  It  is  composed  in  a  smooth  flowing  style  that  reveals 
the  influence  of  Isocrates;  and  in  this  respect  it  might  belong  to 
either  Theopompus  Or  Ephorus. 

Rhetoric  dominates  the  historical  field.  From  the  beginnings 
here  'described  rhetoric  with  its  attendant  ethics  soon  came  to  dominate 
the  historical  field.  It  became  the  function  of  the  historian  to  con- 
tribute through  his  works  to  the  oratorical  and  ethical  education  par- 
ticularly of  those  who  wished  to  enter  public  life.  The  form  be- 
carrie  more  important  than  the  content,  the  moral  end  more  valued 
than  the  ascertainment  of  truth.  This  was  one  of  various  ways  in 
which  the  ancients,  less  inclined  than  moderns  to  the  study  of  facts, 
through  the  lapse  of  centuries  loosened  their  hold  upon  reality  and 
slowly  degenerated  into  mediaevalism. 

Aeschines  and  Demosthenes.  Whereas  the  professional  speech- 
writer  multiplied  and  distributed  his  works  as  examples  of  his  art, 
the  publicist  spread  his  pamphlets  abroad  for  the  propagation  of  his 
ideas.  Meanwhile  a  political  event,  acting  upon  the  internal  de- 
velopment of  literature,  brought  the  oratory  of  Athens  to  a  height  of 
perfection  never  again  attained  to  the  present  day,  and  forced  the 

19  PMC    T    278—333 

20  Edited  i)y  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  Oxyrhynchus  Papyri,  V  (1908).  147  ff.  It  has  been  vari- 
ously assigned  to  Cratippus,  Ephorus,  and  Theopompus.  Among  the  many  studies  of  the 
subject  may  be  mentioned  Meyer,  E.,  Theopomps  Hellenika  (Halle,  1909),  who  argues  for 
Theopompus,  and  Walker,  E.  M.,  The  Hellenica  Oxyrhynchia  (Oxford,  1913),  who  cham- 
pions Ephorus.    The  editors  are  undecided  between  Cratippus  and  Theopompus. 


436  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

statesman  to  disseminate  his  views  through  published  orations.  This 
event  was  the  growth  of  the  Macedonian  power,  which  throughout 
eastern  Hellas  divided  public  men  into  two  parties,  Macedonian  and 
anti-Macedonian,  who  respectively  favored  and  opposed  Philip  and 
Alexander.-^  The  relative  merits  of  the  two  policies  need  not  be 
considered  here.  In  Athens,  as  above  indicated,  the  most  conspicuous 
upholder  of  Philip  was  Aeschines,  the  most  brilliant  opponent 
Demosthenes.  The  latter  received  the  especial  support  of  Hypereides 
and  Lycurgus,  speakers  of  high  rank  and  able  in  the  administration 
of  public  affairs.  The  orator  of  this  period,  combining  his  prede- 
cessors' resources,  employed  them  with  a  mastery  unknown  to  earlier 
time.  Advancing  beyond  Lysias,  he  boldly  revealed  his  art.  To 
the  winsome  ethos  of  that  orator,  and  to  the  argumentative  skill  of 
Isaeus,  he  added  on  occasions  a  vehemence  that  overwhelmed  his 
hearers.  In  brief  he  had  learned,  not  only  to  appeal  to  reason,  but 
to  play  upon  all  the  keys  of  human  emotion.  It  is  needless  here  to 
characterize  the  styles  of  individual  orators;  for  all  excellences  were 
united  and  brought  to  perfection  in  Demosthenes,  the  master,  not  of 
one  but  of  every  style.  The  son  of  a  well-to-do  manufacturer,  he 
was  left  fatherless  in  childhood  and  cheated  of  his  inheritance  by 
perftdious  guardians.  As  he  was  physically  weak,  his  mother,  keep- 
ing him  by  her  side,  deprived  him  of  the  usual  gymnastic  training. 
Thus  he  grew  up  in  poor  health,  unsocial,  seemingly  lacking  fitness 
for  active  life,  and  cherishing  the  one  desire  for  vengeance  on  those 
who  had  wronged  him.  He  qualified  himself  for  oratory  that  he 
might  prosecute  his  guardians,  and  success  in  this  undertaking  gave 
him  a  reputation  as  a  speech-writer,  the  foundation  of  a  substantial 
fortune.  Meanwhile  when  inspiration  came  to  him  to  serve  his  coun- 
try as  a  statesman,  strength  of  will  surmounted  every  obstacle.  A 
defective  articulation  he  made  good  by  prolonged  training.  He 
steeped  his  mind  in  Thucydides  whence  chiefly  he  drew  his  knowledge 
of  the  past  and  his  militant  ideal  of  the  State.  From  Isaeus  and 
Isocrates  and  many  others  he  learned  useful  lessons.  For  delivery 
he  took  training  under  a  successful  actor.  Behind  this  external 
equipment,  all  necessary  in  itself,  we  discover  a  literary  genius  unsur- 
passed, and  a  burning  patriotism  combined  with  the  religious  zeal  of 
a  prophet,  the  practical  statesman,  who  in  the  sweep  of  his  eloquence 
never    fails   to   point   out   the    concrete   way    to   success,    the   moral 

21  p.  385  f. 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  437 

idealist,  who  by  constant  appeals  to  the  nobler  feelings  of  his  hear- 
ers, gradually  lifts  them  to  a  higher  ethical  level,  the  champion  of 
local  freedom  against  encroaching  despotism,  of  a  high  culture  against 
the  advance  of  an  inferior  civilization.  The  universalization  of  Hel- 
lenism was  not  a  conscious  issue.  If  Demosthenes  opposed  the  events 
that  contributed  to  this  process,  at  least  he  enriched  Hellenism  by 
his  supreme  oratory,  and  still  more  by  his  defence  of  human  freedom, 
the  greatest  gift  of  Hellas  to  mankind."^ 

III.     Philosophy 

Plato.  Plato,  the  great  creative  philosopher  of  the  age,  was 
born  at  Athens  in  427  of  highly  aristocratic  parents.  A  kinsman 
was  Critias,  the  violent  leader  of  the  Thirty.  On  the  overthrow 
of  this  oligarchy  the  young  man  thought  of  entering  public  life; 
but  the  condemnation  of  Socrates,  his  revered  master,  awakened  in 
him  an  undying  hatred  of  democracy.  He  could  do  nothing  there- 
fore but  remain  in  private  life  and  satisfy  his  political  longings 
with  the  creation  of  ideal  constitutions  or  appeal  to  a  tyrant  -^  for 
the  realization  of  his  vision  of  the  perfect  State.  It  was  probably 
in  the  year  387  that  Plato  opened  in  his  private  house  a  school  called 
the  Academy  from  its  nearness  to  the  public  garden  of  that  name. 

The  school  of  Plato.  His  literary  works  are  Dialogues.  We 
know,  however,  that  he  considered  these  writings  a  popular  presenta- 
tion of  such  views  as  in  his  opinion  the  laity  could  understand.  In 
his  school  he  lectured  more  learnedly  on  mathematics,  astronomy,  har- 
monics, and  ethics.  In  this  work  he  rightly  leaned  upon  the  Pytha- 
goreans, while  giving  his  pupils  a  fruitful  impetus  to  further  mathe- 
matical and  physical  researches.  While  holding  to  the  end  that  the 
earth  is  the  centre  of  the  universe,  he  finally  accepted  the  doctrine 
of  the  earth's  rotation  on  its  axis.  Following  his  suggestion,  a 
Pythagorean  friend  Eudoxus  attempted  to  explain  the  seemingly  ir- 
regular movements  of  sun,  moon,  and  planets,  by  a  theory  of  homo- 
centric  hollow  spheres  revolving  around  the  earth  at  different  veloci- 
ties. The  heavenly  bodies  he  assumes,  are  fastened  to  these 
spheres.  To  the  sun  and  moon  he  assigns  three  spheres  each;  to  the 
five  known  planets  four  spheres  each,  whereas  a  single  sphere  suf- 

22  On    Demosthenes;    Plut.    Demosthenes;    Ten    Orators,    844    ff. ;    Demosthenes,    Against 
Aplwhus  I  (H.  Civ.  no.  156). 
2. -5  P.  416. 


438  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

fices  for  all  the  fixed  stars.  Although  these  spheres  are  a  pure 
fiction,  mathematically  they  serve  their  purpose,  and  are  therefore  a 
highly  ingenious  theory. 

The  dialogues  of  Plato.  Of  the  lectures  of  Plato,  however,  we 
have  mere  hints.  It  is  upon  the  dialogues,  in  addition  to  the  little 
ihat  can  be  gathered  from  his  pupil  Aristotle,  that  we  must  chiefly 
rely  for  our  knowledge  of  his  views.  The  dialogue,  which  had  long 
been  a  favorite  instrument  of  the  philosopher,-*  received  from  Plato 
an  artistic  form.  It  shows  him  not  a  dry  reasoner  but  a  highly 
imaginative  poet.  Though  prose  in  form,  his  language,  brilliantly 
versatile,  sparkles  with  poetic  gems.  He  is  gifted,  too,  with  rare 
dramatic  power.  The  speakers  of  the  dialogues  are  living  persons, 
who  everywhere   retain   their  psychological    identity. 

We  should  not  look  to  his  writings  for  a  consistent  system  of 
knowledge;  for  through  an  active  life  of  eighty-one  years  his  mind 
continually  developed.  During  this  time  he  came  into  contact,  or  re- 
newed his  acquaintance,  with  existing  philosophies,  one  after  an- 
other, from  each  of  which  he  received  an  enlargement  of  his  mental 
horizon  and  a  new  impetus  to  creative  work.  At  the  basis  of  his 
thought  lies  his  doctrine  of  ideas.  Socrates  had  taught  him  that 
the  only  objects  of  knowledge  are  concepts,-^  universal  truths  estab- 
lished by  induction.  With  Plato  the  concept  becomes  an  idea,  a 
word  derived  from  the  Pythageoreans  and  signifying  form.  Ideas  are 
not  forms  in  the*  geometrical  sense  but  are  colorless,  shapeless,  intan- 
gible realities,  which  the  mind  alone  can  perceive.  In  distinction 
from  our  ideas,  which  have  their  being  in  the  mind  alone,  those  of 
Plato  are  objective  realities,  in  fact  the  only  things  that  exist.  The 
objects  of  sense  are  real  in  so  far  only  as  they  "  partake  of  "  these 
pure  realities. 

Plato's  ethics.  Plato's  chief  concern  was  with  ethics.  The  great- 
/  est  of  all  ideas,  he  taught,  is  God,  who  created  the  world  and  gave 
to  it  a  soul,'"''  through  which  reason  and  order  and  life  came  into  all 
things.  At  His  command  the  lesser  gods  fashioned  the  body  of  man, 
and  He  Himself  prepared  the  soul,  making  it  of  the  same  substance 
as  the  world  soul,  though  less  pure.  Each  human  soul  is  given  a 
star  to  which  it  will  return  after  having  completed  a  good  life  on 

24  p.  343. 

25  p.  342. 

26  On  the  creation  of  the  world  and  of  man,  see  Timaeus,  30  ff.    The  spherical  form  of 
the  earth  and  its  rotation  on  its  axis  {i3)  he  derived  from  the  Pythagoreans. 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  439 

earth ;  but  the  soul  that  has  lived  badly  will  at  the  next  birth  enter  an 
inferior  creature.  This  theory  of  creation  and  of  human  life  is 
presented  not  as  a  dogma,  but  as  a  mere  approximation  of  the  truth, 
a  metaphor  continually  varied  throughout  his  writings.  By  means  of 
education  man  advances  toward  the,»highest  Good,  which  is  neither 
knowledge  nor  happiness  but  the  utmost  likeness  to  God.  Happi- 
ness, altogether  different  from  bodily  pleasure,  is  the  possession  of 
the  good.  In  Plato's  doctrine,  taken  from  the  Orphists,  the  body  is 
merely  the  dungeon  or  the  tomb  of  the  soul.-^  From  the  body  the 
soul  must  purify  itself  in  order  to  attain  to  the  good  and  to  virtue, 
which  is  the  fitness  of  the  soul  for  its  proper  work. 

Plato's  Republic.  An  important  division  of  ethics  is  politics.  In 
the  view  of  Plato  the  State  is  not  the  all-in-all  of  the  citizen,  as  it 
had  been  in  former  time.  The  calm  existence  of  the  philosopher,  the 
solving  of  the  problems  of  the  essential  and  the  eternal,  is  a  nobler 
being  than  that  of  the  politician.  The  body  only  of  the  philosopher 
lives  in  the  State,  while  his  soul  dwells  elsewhere  untouched  by  po- 
litical ambition.-^  This  is  true  of  a  community  like  Athens,  he  as- 
serts, governed  by  the  ignorant  majority,  whose  greatest  statesmen, 
Pericles,  Cimon,  Miltiades,  and  Themistocles,  utterly  have  failed  in 
the  function  of  improving  the  character  of  the  citizens.-^  It  would 
be  quite  otherwise  with  a  State  philosophically  organized,  like  that 
set  forth  in  his  Republic.  As  any  State  is  an  individual  "  writ 
large,"  the  ideal  State  is  constituted  like  a  perfect  individual  with 
the  baser  parts  subordinate  to  the  nobler.  In  this  ideal  community 
there  are  to  be  three  social  classes,  the  laborers,  the  soldiers,  and  the 
rulers,  the  last  two  constituting  the  guardians.  These  elements  are 
borrowed  from  the  actual  Hellenic  world.  Evidently  the  laborers  on 
the  farm  and  in  the  trades  are  helots  and  perioeci;  the  soldiers  are 
the  Spartan  warriors,  whereas  the  philosophic  rulers  look  to  the 
Pythagoreans  as  their  prototype.  The  lowest  class  is  intellectually 
least  endowed,  and  fit  for  nothing  but  manual  labor.  Their  virtue, 
like  that  of  the  soul's  lowest  faculty,  is  obedience  to  the  higher 
powers.  The  middle  class  are  the  warriors,  whose  virtue  is  courage. 
They  ply  no  manual  work  but  devote  their  lives  to  their  special 
function.  It  is  upon  them  and  the  ruling  class  that  Plato  bestows 
his  chief  attention.     These  gradations,  however,  are  not  castes,  but 

27  Cratylus,  400   b;   Pha^do,   62  b;    cf.    66  b.     The   Orphists;   p.    143  f. 

2S  Theactetus,  172  c.   ff. ;   Gorgias,  464  b  ff. 

29  H.  Civ.  no.  135  {Gorg.  515-9)  with  introduction  and  notes. 


440  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

each  is  formed  by  a  careful  selection  from  the  class  just  below;  so 
that  men  are  constantly  rising  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  grades  of 
society.  Praiseworthy  are  the  assignment  of  rank  according  to 
capacity,  the  division  of  labor  which  makes  for  efficiency,  and  the 
abolition  of  slavery. 

The  education  of  guardians  is  to  begin  at  birth.  All  who  have 
infants  in  charge  are  to  see  that  everj^  act  performed  and  ever\^  word 
spoken  in  the  child's  presence  shall  be  such  as  will  contribute  to  the 
right  growth  of  character.  From  seven  to  seventeen  he  pursues  ele- 
mentar>'  studies,  reading,  writing,  the  lower  mathematics,  gymnastics, 
and  music,  including  literature.  Most  of  the  poets,  along  with  Homer, 
are  rejected  because  they  suggest  immoral  or  irreligious  views;  nothing 
but  the  strengthening  and  the  ennobling  is  acceptable.  From  seven- 
teen to  twenty  the  youth  has  his  preliminary  training  in  arms.  At 
this  period  it  is  determined  who  are  to  be  warriors,  and  who  are  to 
continue  the  intellectual  education  essential  to  statesmen.  From 
twenty  to  thirty  the  latter  class  are  to  devote  themselves  to  the  thor- 
ough study  of  the  sciences.  If  incapable  of  advancing  farther  they 
enter  public  life  as  minor  officials,  whereas  the  few  who  are  better 
gifted  devote  five  additional  years  to  the  study  of  ideas.  From 
thirty-five  to  fifty  these  intellectuals  govern  the  State,  after  which  they 
retire  to  a  life  of  higher  philosophic  thought.  In  planning  for  an 
advanced  intellectual  education  carefully  regulated  Plato  made  one 
of  his  greatest  contributions  to  civilization.  That  the  guardians,  both 
warriors  and  statesmen,  may  devote  themselves  unselfishly  and  un- 
trammeled  to  their  functions  individual  wealth  and  the  family  itself 
are  abolished.  Property  is  held  in  common,  and  the  mating  of  men 
and  women  is  managed  by  the  State  with  an  eye  single  to  the  birth 
of  strong,  healthful  children.  Eugenics  is  pushed  to  extremes. 
Women,  relieved  of  the  care  of  children,  are  to  have  the  same  training 
as  men  and  to  perform  the  same  military  and  political  services. 

Even  if  such  a  State  were  capable  of  realization,  it  is  too  unnatural 
a  thing  to  bring  good  results.  From  the  first  Plato  saw  that  no  com- 
munity would  voluntarily  adopt  it,  and  in  his  old  age  substituted  a 
more  workable  political  system  in  one  of  his  latest  writings,  the  Laws. 
The  chief  value  of  the  Republic  lies  in  its  individual  suggestions  as 
to  educational,  social,  and  political  reforms,  and  in  the  powerful 
impetus  it  gives  to  the  intellectual  life  of  the  reader.  In  brief  it 
is  not  the  knowledge  discovered  by  Plato  but  his  belief  in  spiritual 


tn 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  441 

realities,  his  aspiration  to  the  beautiful,  the  good,  and  the  true,  his 
conception  of  the  vast  heights  attainable  by  man  that  place  him 
among  the  most  powerful  intellectual  and  moral  forces  that  operate 
upon  the  human  race. 

Aristotle  the  pupil  of  Plato.  After  the  death  of  its  founder  the 
Academy  continued  under  other  masters  and  gradually  degenerated. 
Meanwhile  the  creative  and  organizing  activities  within  the  philosophic 
field  were  carried  on  with  greater  success  by  others.  The  real  heir 
to  Plato  was  his  most  brilliant  pupil  Aristotle  (384-322)  from 
Stageirus,  Chalcidice.  Twenty  years  he  studied  under  Plato.  Three 
years  (343-40)  he  was  a  teacher  of  Alexander,  the  young  Macedon- 
ian prince.  Still  later  he  returned  to  Athens  and  established  a  school 
of  his  own  named  the  Lyceum,  after  the  famous  gymnasium  in  which 
he  taught.  His  system  of  thouj^bt-is  also  described  as  peripatetic, 
from  the  circumstance  that  he  walked  {irepiiTaTdv,  peripatein)  with 
his  pupils  while  giving  instruction. 

Aristotle's  dialogues.  His  Dialogues,^"  which  were  popular  like 
those  of  Plato,  have  been  lost;  but  most  of  his  technical  works, 
corresponding  to  Plato's  lectures,  are  extant.^^  Among  them,  how- 
ever, are  studies  either  finished  or  wholly  composed  by  his  pupils, 
which  we  cannot,  with  certainty  in  every  case,  distinguish  from  writ- 
ings exclusively  his  own. 

Aristotle  the  scholar.  In  Aristotle  we  discover  a  new  type  of 
mind,  that  of  the  scholar  as  distinguished  from  the  essentially  creative 
intelligence.  It  is  true  that  he  was  himself  a  discoverer,  but  his 
great  achievement  was  to  systematize  and  reduce  to  writing  the  knowl- 
edge which  the  Hellenes  had  thus  far  accumulated.  Accepting  in  the 
main  the  method  and  system  of  Plato,  he  made  corrections  in  detail; 
and  with  his  more  logical  mind  and  a  greater  command  of  facts, 
he  was  able  to  render  the  method  more  precise  and  to  widen  the  field 
of  scientific  thought.^-  In  this  task  he  discovered  that  the  most 
insignificant  fact  of  nature  is  worthy  of  attention  as  the  potential 
source  of  valuable  knowledge.^^  In  general  he  was  less  concerned 
with  abstract  reasoning  than  Plato  and  more  with  observation  and 

30  Aristotelis  .  .  .  fragmenta,  nos.  1-111  (Rose),  comprise  the  remnants;  see  also  Ox.  Pap. 
IV.  no.  666  (from  the  dialogue  Exhortation  to  Philosophy).  The  extant  works  are  briefly 
represented   by   Bakewell,    pp.   217-68. 

■u  The  story  of  the  loss  of  some  Aristotelian  books  and  their  recovery  in  the  first  cen- 
tury B.  C.  told  by  Strabo  xii.  1.  54  (cf.  Plut.  Sulla,  26)  is  doubtless  true;  but  copies  of 
most  of  them  had  been  in  continual  use;  Zeller,  Aristotle,  II.   ch.   iii. 

■■'■2  See  for  example  his  criticism  of  Plato's  ideas  and  the  exposition  of  his  own  view; 
Bakewell,  p.   220  ff. 

33  Part.  an.   i.  5,  645  a. 


442  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

experience.  The  work  of  scientific  experimentation,  however,  was 
then  in  its  infancy,  and  the  observer  was  hampered  by  a  lack  of  in- 
struments. The  remarkable  thing  is  that  with  his  limitations  he  was 
able  to  accomplish  so  much. 

Divisions  of  knowledge.  The  main  divisions  of  knowledge  in 
his  classification  are  Logic,  Metaphysics,  Natural  History,  and  Ethics. 
Under  the  head  of  metaphysics  he  places  his  First  Philosophy,  uni- 
versal principles  on  which  everything  else  is  based.  Natural  history 
includes  physics  and  astronomy  as  well  as  psychology  and  physiology, 
zoology,  botany,  and  other  studies  of  nature.  Rhetoric  and  politics 
are  branches  of  ethics.  A  fifth  department  of  knowledge  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  Philosophy  of  Art,  represented  by  his  Poetics.^*  Mathe- 
matics he  did  not  cultivate  as  an  independent  study.  In  logic  he  com- 
pleted a  system  of  proof  begun  by  Socrates.  From  particulars  he 
rises  to  universals  by  induction,  as  the  earlier  philosopher  taught;  ^^ 
from  principles  he  reasons  back  to  particulars  by  the  process  of  de- 
duction through  the  syllogism,  a  formula  of  reasoning  first  clearly  set 
forth  by  himself. 

Nature  study.  Despite  his  considerable  study  of  nature  the  least 
valuable  parts  of  his  system  are  those  which  depend  upon  observation 
rather  than  upon  abstract  thought.  This  fact  is  illustrated  by  his 
astronomy,  a  system  of  the  universe  cruder  perhaps  than  that  of  Eu- 
doxus  described  above. ^°  The  collection  of  material  for  his  study  of 
plants  and  animals  was  probably  facilitated  by  Alexander,  though 
we  are  certain  that  no  systematic  gathering  accompanied  the  marches 
of  the  conqueror.^"  That  Aristotle  made  many  mistakes  in  describ- 
ing animals  he  had  never  seen  was  inevitable;  and  we  need  not  be 
surprised  to  find  him  in  error  as  to  the  functions  of  some  of  the  most 
vital  organs.  Flesh,  he  supposed,  is  the  medium  of  sensation.  Chief 
of  all  organs  is  the  heart,  which  prepares  the  blood  and  aids  in  mo- 
tion and  sensation.  The  blood,  purified  by  the  heart,  flows  from 
thence  to  the  various  parts  of  the  body,  whereas  the  brain  serves  to 
cool  the  blood  and  moderate  the  heat  arising  from  the  heart.  The 
study  of  plants  begun  by  him  was  carried  farther  and  ultimately 
published  by  Theophrastus,  his  successor.     Most  interesting  is  Aris- 

34  On  this  classification,  see  Zeller,  Aristotle,  II.   188-90. 

35  P.  343. 

36  P.  437;  cf.  Aristotle,  De  caelo,  ii.  8  ff. ;   Lones,  Aristotle's  Researches.  32. 

37  On  this  aid,  see  Aelian,  Var.  hist.  iv.  19;  Athen.  ix.  58;  Pliny,  N.  H.  viii  16.  44. 
Aristotle,  however,  was  unacquainted  with  the  animals  that  such  a  collection  would  have 
held,  had  it  been  made. 


ART  AND  INTELLIGENCE  443 

totle's  theory  as  to  progress  made  by  the  creative  power  of  Nature. 
Beginning  with  the  lowest  forms  of  life,  She  gradually  passes  to  the 
higher;  having  fashioned  the  plants,  She  proceeds  to  the  invention  of 
animals  and  thence  to  men.^*  This  process  is  an  evolution,  not  of 
organic  nature  itself,  but  of  the  creative  power. 

The  Ethics  of  Aristotle.  Whereas  Plato  gives  inspiration,  Aris- 
totle conveys  knowledge.  The  one  soars  above  the  clouds,  the  other 
keeps  his  feet  firmly  on  earth.  In  his  Ethics,  as  elsewhere,  Aristotle 
appeals  more  strongly  to  the  average  man.  Casting  aside  the  dictum 
of  Socrates  and  Plato  that  knowledge  is  virtue,  he  recognizes  that  a 
man  may  know  the  right  but  have  too  weak  a  will  to  do  it.^^  L^seful 
are  only  those  thoughts  that  lead  to  useful  actions;  *°  and  happiness, 
the  supreme  good,*^  is  nothing  more  than  good  and  efficient  life 
regulated  by  right  rules  of  conduct.  It  is  the  function  of  ethics  to 
supply  these  rules.  Pleasures  which  involve  mere  self-indulgence  are 
wholly  bad;  others,  arising  from  the  normal  exercise  of  any  faculty, 
though  not  ends  in  themselves,  are  desirable.*-  Although  well-being, 
including  health,  wealth,  friends,  and  family,  are  helpful  to  the  cul- 
tivation of  virtue,''^  they  are  not  essential,  and  a  philosopher  may  draw 
strength  from  illness  and  poverty.** 

The  Politics  of  Aristotle.  "  No  man  liveth  unto  himself  "  is  one 
of  the  strongest  tenets  of  this  philosopher.  Personal  affections  within 
and  outside  the  family  and  kin  constitute  friendship.  True  friend- 
ship, involving  a  love  of  the  good  qualities  discoverable  in  the  friend 
and  an  unselfish  desire  to  benefit,  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  moral 
forces  in  society.  A  broadening  of.  friendship  brings  us  to  the  com- 
mon life  of  the  community.  Man  is  a  political  animal,  and  his 
highest  existence  is  in  the  State.  The  aim  of  the  State  is  not  simply 
the  protection  of  the  life  and  property  of  the  citizens,  but  their  educa- 
tion to  the  highest  reach  of  moral  and  spiritual  fitness.*^  In  the 
Politics  the  author  does  not  seek  the  ideal  State;  his  aim  rather  is  to 
determine  the  nature  of  the  State  in  all  the  varieties  furnished  by  the 
Hellenic  world;  to  discover  the  constitution  best  adapted  to  every 
typical  community;  to  ascertain  defects  of  various  political  systems 

38  Zeller,  Aristotle.  II.  28-30  and  notes. 

39  Ethics,  vi.   13;  vii.  5. 

40  Op.  cit.   i.  1. 

41  Op.  cit.  i.  2;  Rhet.  i.  5. 

42  Eth.  X.  2  f. 

43  Op.  cit.  i.  9;  vii.   14. 

44  O^.  cit.  i.  11;  X.  9;  cf.  Polit.  vii.  1.  6. 

45  Politics,  i.  1. ;  2.  9. 


444  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  remedies  for  them.  His  task  in  brief  is  to  create  a  political 
science  on  the  basis  of  induction  from  actual  conditions  furnished  by 
a  multitude  of  city-states,  chiefly  Hellenic  but  including  a  few 
foreign  cities  like  Carthage.*''"  As  the  Politics  is  extensively  quoted 
in  another  chapter,'*"  it  requires  no  lengthy  treatment  here.  Despite 
incompleteness  and  an  imperfect  text  it  is  the  greatest  contribution  to 
political  and  social  science  made  by  the  ancient  world. 

46  On  his  vast  collection  of  constitutional  histories,   p.  429  above. 

47  Ch.  XXV ;  cf.  H.  Civ.  nos.  136-43. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Abbott,  Hellenica,  67-243,  324-386;  Beloch  II  (1st  ed.),  chs.  ix,  x;  Blass, 
Die  Attische  Beredsamkeit;  Bury,  Ancient  Greek  Historians ;  Capps,  Homer  to 
Theocritus,  330-402;  Croiset,  IV,  chs.  v-ix,  xi;  Fowler  and  Wheeler,  158-179, 
251-276;  Gardner,  Handbook  of  Greek  Sculpture,  279-299,  383-469;  Gardner, 
Six  Greek  Sculptors  (Scribner,  1910)  ;  Gomperz,  Greek  Thinkers,  IV,  chs.  i-vi, 
V  (entire),  VI,  chs.  i-xxxviii;  Holm,  III,  ch.  xii;  Jebb,  Attic  Orators  from 
Antiphon  to  Isaeus  (2d.  ed.,  London,  1893)  ;  Pickard-Cambridge,  Demosthenes ; 
Schaefer,  Demosthenes ;  Stobart,  Glory  that  was  Greece,  ch.  v;  Taylor,  Aristotle 
(Dodge,  1912);  Windelband,  History  of  Ancient  Philosophy,  174-292;  Wright, 
Greek  Literature,  271-368,  379-413, 


^\0* 


ALEXANDER  TYPE  OF  COIN 
(Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts) 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE  AND  THE  HELLENISTIC 

KINGDOMS 

337-146 

Death  of  Philip.  The  invasion  of  Asia  Minor  followed  hard  upon 
the  session  of  the  Hellenic  deputies  at  Corinth ;  ^  in  the  early  months 
of  336  Philip's  best  general  Parmenion  crossed  the  Hellespont  with 
a  Macedonian  army,  to  guard  the  strait  against  the  king's  coming, 
while  the  latter  lingered  to  divide  his  time  between  State  business  and 
carousals.  Throughout  his  life  he  had  recklessly  courted  danger  in 
violent  debaucheries  and  hazardous  marital  ventures.  A  polygamous 
barbarian,  he  took  no  wives  with  him  to  war,  but  married  new 
brides  in  the  course  of  every  campaign  —  women  of  various  nation- 
alities who  enmeshed  the  conqueror  in  the  web  of  their  acrimonious 
intrigues.-  It  was  at  least  suspected  that  Olympias,  mother  of  Alex- 
ander, when  repudiated  in  favor  of  another  woman,  instigated  the 
assassin  against  her  husband.  At  all  events  he  was  murdered  in  the 
midst  of  a  festival.^  Philip  had  achieved  the  task  of  making  his  own 
State  the  greatest  military  power  in  the  world,  and  of  giving  to  east- 
ern Hellas  at  least  the  form  of  institutional  unity.  The  conquest  of 
Asia  was  left  to  his  no  less  competent  son. 

Alexander.  Alexander  was  but  twenty  when  he  mounted  the 
throne.*     He  had  had  Aristotle  as  an  instructor,  to  whom  we  nat- 

1  p.  390. 

2  Satyrus,  Life  of  Philip,  in  Athen.  xiii.  5. 

3  Autumn,  336;  Died.  xvi.  94. 

4  For  the  life  of  Alexander  we  have  not  one  contemporary  history  or  biography,  al- 
though there  were  many.  The  most  important  source  was  the  Daily  Court  Journal  kept 
by  his  chief  secretary.  There  were  also  letters  and  other  documents,  including  reports  of 
explorations  like  that  of  Nearchus.     The  ablest  and  most  trustworthy  Lives  were  those  of 

445 


446  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

urally  credit  the  young  man's  interest  in  the  enlargement  of  science, 
and  had  won  military  distinction  under  his  father.  His  inspiration 
he  had  drawn  from  the  Iliad;  his  ideal  was  Achilles,  a  young  man 
of  tempestuous  passions  and  a  brave  indomitable  warrior.  In  brief 
Alexander's  nature  combined  the  romantic  with  the  practical.  Imme- 
diately the  weakness  of  his  father's  Hellenic  arrangements  revealed 
itself  in  widespread  disaffection.  It  was  not  till  Alexander  took 
Thebes  by  assault,  destroyed  the  city,  and  sold  the  inhabitants  into 
slavery  that  the  Greeks  could  be  made  to  understand  that  they  still 
had  a  master.  He  continued  Philip's  policy  in  relation  to  them; 
the  Hellenic  league  and  his  own  captaincy  were  maintained,  although 
his  military  demand  upon  the  Greeks  was  appreciably  lighter  than 
his  father  had  planned.^ 

Alexander's  conquests.  In  the  spring  of  334  Alexander  crossed 
the  Hellespont  with  about  35,000  men.  On  the  Granicus  river  he  met 
a  slightly  larger  force  of  the  enemy,  the  infantry  consisting  of  Greek 
mercenaries.  His  victory  was  speedy  and  complete.*'  After  this 
success  he  proceeded  to  liberate  the  Hellenic  cities,  and  to  settle  their 
affairs  in  the  manner  to  be  described  below. ^  How  far  the  intentions 
of  Alexander  reached  on  the  day  when  he  crossed  the  Hellespont  we 
do  not  know  —  probably  not  to  the  conquest  of  the  whole  Persian 
empire;  but  the  young  man  of  fiery  spirit  and  growing  ambition  could 
never  content  himself  with  present  achievements  however  great.  From 
the  acquisition  of  the  Aegean  coast  he  was  led  to  the  conquest  of  Asia 
Minor.  It  was  a  keen  disappointment  that  a  majority  of  the  Hellenes, 
far  from  regarding  him  as  a  deliverer,  threw  their  sympathy  to  the 
Persian  side;  and  lacking  the  support  of  their  warships  while  those  of 
the  enemy  commanded  the  sea,  he  had  to  make  his  advance  along  the 
coast  in  order  to  occupy  the  port  towns  and  thus  secure  himself  from 
attack  by  water.  At  Issus,  Cilicia,  he  met  King  Darius  in  command 
of  an  army  much  larger  than  his  own.  The  battle,  however,  was 
fought  in  a  narrow  plain  hemmed  in  by  forests;  so  that  the  Persian 

his  generals  Ptolemy  and  Aristoboulus.  Our  chief  extant  source  is  Arrian,  Anabasis 
of  Alexander,  drawn  mainly  from  the  two  Lives  just  mentioned.  The  author  was  an  officer 
of  the  Roman  empire,  and  the  work  is  in  a  high  degree  reliable.  We  have,  too,  Plutarch, 
Alexander ;  Justin's  epitome;  Diodorus  xvii;  considerable  parts  of  Q.  Curtius  Rufus,  His- 
tories of  Alexander  the  Great,  King  of  Macedon,  a  work  of  the  first  century  A.  D.  of  in- 
ferior merit.  Much  information  is  supplied  by  the  contemporary  orations,  inscriptions, 
and  coins. 

5  Arrian  i.  7  f. ;  Diod.  xvii.  8  ff . ;  Aelian  Var.  hist.  xii.  57;  Justin  xi.  2  f . ;  Plutarch., 
Alexander  (about  30,000  sold  into  slavery);  Demosthenes,  23.  This  harshness  was  not  offset 
by  his  sparing  the  dwelling  and  the  descendants  of  Pindar. 

6  Arrian  i.  2;  Diod.  xvii.   17  f. ;  Plut.  Alex.   15  f . ;   Justin  xi.  5  f. 

7  P.  461  ff. 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE  .        447 

king  could  not  take  advantage  of  his  superior  numbers.  His  army 
was  routed  and  dispersed,  and  he  could  only  save  himself  by  headlong 
flight.*  From  this  time  it  is  clear  that  Alexander,  with  enlarged 
ambition,  intended  to  conquer  the  Persian  empire.^ 

Having  thus  determined,  Alexander  first  took  possession  of  the 
Syrian  coast  and  of  Egypt;  for  while  marching  into  the  interior  he 
dared  not  leave  in  his  rear  a  single  port  open  to  the  hostile  fleet. 
This  campaign  involved  the  capture  of  Tyre  and  of  Gaza  by  siege. 
Egypt  yielded  without  resistance  and  welcomed  the  conqueror  who 
interested  himself  in  the  worship  of  its  gods.^° 

Founding  of  Alexandria.  The  young  man's  quick  intelligence  dis- 
covered on  the  coast  of  Egypt  the  best  site  for  a  colony,  which  he 
named  Alexandria.  As  Tyre  lay  in  ruins,  his  new  city  was  to  be  the 
great  port  of  the  nearer  Orient,  to  provide  a  commercial  bond  be- 
tween his  eastern  domains  and  the  kingdom  of  his  fathers.  Another 
object  of  the  settlement,  composed  of  Macedonians  and  Greeks  with 
but  subsidiary  native  elements,  was  to  secure  the  fidelity  of  Egypt. ^^ 

Alexander  —  the  son  of  Zeus.  For  millennia  the  Egyptians  had 
been  accustomed  to  absolute  rule.  Their  pharaoh  was  a  god-king, 
the  incarnation  of  a  deity.  In  accepting  Alexander  as  their  pharaoh 
they  could  only  think  of  him  as  a  divine  incarnation.  Their  view, 
however,  had  no  effect  on  Hellenic  thought;  but  in  the  Libyan  desert 
between  Egypt  and  Cyrene  lay  the  oracle  of  Ammon,  whom  the 
Hellenes  identified  with  Zeus,  and  to  whom  they  had  been  accustomed 
to  resort  for  prophecies  more  weighty  even  than  those  of  the  Delphic 
Apollo.  Thither  went  Alexander,  and  received  from  the  oracle  of 
the  desert  acknowledgment  that  he  was  the  son  of  Zeus.^-  The  young 
king,  who  had  fed  his  mind  on  Homeric  myths,  and  had  already 
achieved  the  superhuman  in  battle  and  conquest,  probably  believed  the 
story;  certainly  the  theory  of  his  own  divinity  grew  on  him  from  that 
time  forth. 

Battle  of  Arbela.  After  Alexander  had  settled  the  affairs  of 
Egypt  and  Syria  he  marched  slowly  eastward,  crossed  the  Euphrates 

8  Arrian  ii.  11  f.  The  numbers  given  by  the  ancients  —  500,000  (Diod.  xvii.  31.  2)  or 
600,000  (Arrian  ii.  8;   Plut.  Alex.  18)  are  incredible. 

9  Arrian  ii.  14,  quoting  a  letter  which  is  probably  a  fiction;  but  his  subsequent  move- 
ments were  evidently  a  preparation  for  invading  the  interior. 

10  Arrian  ii.   16-27.   iii.   1. 

11  Arrian  iii.  2;  Diod.  xvii.  52;  Strabo  xvii.  1.  6-8  (H.  Civ.  no.  205);  Plut  Alex.  26; 
Steph.  Byz.    'AXe^avdoeia- 

12  For  the  Athenian  State  galley  Ammonias,  see  Arist.  Const.  Atli.  61.  7  with  Sandys'  tes- 
timonia.  Visit  to  the  oracle;  Diod.  vii.  49;  Curtius  iv.  7.  10;  Arrian  iii.  3  f . ;  Justin  xi. 
11.  2;  Plut.  Alex.  26. 


448  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

and  Tigris,  and  with  47,000  men  met  Darius  near  Arbela  in  command 
of  an  army  which  the  ancients  estimate  in  numbers  ranging  from 
250,000  to  4,000,000  horse  and  foot.  We  may  assume  at  least  that 
the  king's  forces  materially  outnumbered  Alexander's.^^  On  this 
occasion  Darius  had  chosen  an  open  plain  where  his  superiority  in 
bulk  could  be  made  effective.  He  hoped  with  his  elephants  and  his 
scythed  chariots  to  break  the  phalanx,  after  which  his  cavalry,  sup- 
ported by  footmen,  would  complete  the  Macedonian  rout.  The 
phalangites,  however,  opened  their  ranks  to  let  the  chariots  pass 
through,  or  dislodged  the  drivers,  and  turned  the  teams  back  upon  the 
enemy.  Alexander  was  outflanked;  but  seeing  a  gap  in  the  enemy's 
line,  he  dashed  in  at  the  head  of  a  cavalry  brigade  and  cut  the  army 
of  Darius  in  two.  Meanwhile  the  Macedonian  phalanx,  advancing 
into  touch  with  the  Persians,  drove  them  to  flight.  There  were  many 
complications  which  need  not  be  described  here.  It  is  enough  to  say 
that  the  critical  victory  of  the  war  was  due  to  the  skill  of  Alexander 
and  his  officers  and  the  bravery  and  discipline  of  his  men.  Darius 
fled,  and  was  ultimately  murdered  by  his  own  subjects. 

Further  conquests.  The  battle  of  Arbela  gave  the  victor  a  vital 
hold  upon  the  empire,  but  left  to  his  remaining  campaigns  the  none 
too  easy  task  of  overcoming  widely  separated  points  of  resistance. 
Babylon  surrendered  without  delay.  He  entered  the  city  and  wor- 
shipped its  gods,  as  he  had  worshipped  those  of  Egypt.  From  Baby- 
lon he  marched  with  little  opposition  into  Persia,  and  occupied  its 
two  capitals,  Susa  and  Persepolis.  In  the  treasuries  of  both  places  he 
found  great  hoards  of  silver,  which  he  confiscated  and  put  into  circu- 
lation. The  palace  at  Persepolis  he  destroyed  with  fire  and  the  in- 
habitants he  slaughtered,  to  punish  the  Persians  for  having  burned 
the  cities  and  temples  of  Hellas,  and  to  ruin  their  prestige  as  an  im- 
perial people.  Down  to  this  time,  as  this  deed  indicates,  he  remained 
a  champion  of  Hellenism.^* 

Policy  of  solidifying  the  empire.  Three  years  were  occupied  in 
reducing  the  northeastern  provinces  of  the  empire,  where  the  powerful 
satraps  at  the  head  of  the  warlike  inhabitants  offered  him  an  obsti- 
nate resistance.  During  these  campaigns  Alexander  began  to  adopt 
the  Persian  royal  dress  and  habits,  at  first  when  giving  audience  to 
natives  and  afterward  on  all  occasions.     It  was  in  line  with  his  policy 

l.f  Arrian  iii.  8-15;  Diod.  xvii.  60;   Curtius  iv.  9-16,  v.   U.     The  battle  was  actually  fought 
at  Gaugamela,  near  Arbela.     On  the  numbers,   see  especially  Delbriick,  Kriegsk  I.   173  f. 
14  Arrian  iii.   18;   Plut.   Alex.   18;   Diod.  xvii.   72. 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPfRE  449 

of  assimilating  Macedonians  and  Greeks  with  a  view  to  solidifying  his 
empire.  To  this  end  he  encouraged  the  marriage  of  his  soldiers  with 
native  women.  At  his  command  thirty  thousand  youths  of  the 
country  were  chosen  to  receive  instruction  in  the  Greek  language 
and  to  be  trained  in  the  use  of  Macedonian  arms.  At  the  same  time 
the  king  began  to  show  irritability  at  opposition  or  lack  of  deference 
in  his  subjects.  Servility  was  spreading  among  the  Macedonians, 
but  the  more  manly  spirits  resented  his  Persian  airs  and  his  increasing 
aloofness.  A  conspiracy  was  formed.  Philotas,  son  of  his  best 
general  Parmenion,  though  cognizant  of  the  plot,  neglected  to  inform 
Alexander.  When  the  truth  finally  reached  the  ears  of  the  king,  he 
brought  Philotas  on  a  charge  of  treason  before  an  assembly  of  Mace- 
donians, who  lost  no  time  in  condemning  the  accused  to  death.  Un- 
der torture  Philotas  had  mentioned  his  father,  who  too  was  put  to 
death,  though  doubtless  innocent.  Parmenion  was  the  ablest  general 
of  the  school  of  Philip  and  Alexander's  most  faithful  lieutenant; 
his  son  was  probably  guilty  of  nothing  worse  than  neglect.  There 
was  murmuring  throughout  the  army  at  the  murder  of  Parmenion, 
but  no  one  dar^  remonstrate.^^ 

Shortly  after\vard  during  a  festival  to  Dionysus,  when  the  company 
was  drinking  heavily,  the  courtiers  began  to  flatter  Alexander,  com- 
paring him  with  Heracles  and  saying  that  he  surpassed  his  father  in 
achievements.  Cleitus,  a  young  Macedonian  noble,  rashly  protest- 
ing against  this  flattery,  extolled  Philip  and  depreciated  Alexander, 
boasting  that  he,  Cleitus,  had  saved  the  young  king's  life  in  battle 
In  great  rage  Alexander  seized  a  weapon  and  killed  him,  but  after- 
ward was  exceedingly  sorry  for  what  he  had  done^® 

Oriental  absolutism  of  Alexander.  His  next  step  toward  Ori- 
ental absolutism  was  the  requirement  that  all  who  approached  should 
prostrate  themselves  before  him.  To  the  natives  the  act  meant  noth- 
ing more  than  ceremonial  respect,  whereas  the  Europeans  regarded  it 
as  worship.  It  was  agreed  between  him  and  certain  of  his  "  com- 
panions "  that  at  a  prospective  banquet  they  should  themselves  set 
the  example.  On  this  occasion  Callisthenes,  the  philosopher  and 
historian,  by  refusing  to  prostrate  himself  incurred  the  king's  anger. 
For  the  time  being  Callisthenes  went  unharmed,  but  not  long  after- 

15  Plut.  Alex.  A5  (cf.  Phocion,  17);  Diod.  xvii,  77.  4-7;  Justin  xii.  3.  Native  youths; 
Plut.  Alex.  47.  Conspiracy;  Diod.  xvii.  79  f. ;  Arrian  iii.  26;  Curtius  vi.  7-vii.  2;  Plut. 
Alex.  48.     Justin  xii.  5.    Parmenion  had  been  left  at  Ecbatana  as  governor  of  Media. 

16  Arrian  iv.  8  f. 


450  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ward  was  implicated  in  a  conspiracy  of  the  pages.  These  were  the 
sons  of  Macedonian  nobles,  brought  up  in  the  king's  court  and  acting 
as  his  personal  guard.  Alexander's  insolence  toward  one  of  their 
number  incited  among  them  a  plot  to  kill  him  while  he  slept.  It  was 
discovered ;  and  the  ringleader  and  Callisthenes,  who  was  suspected  of 
instigating  the  conspiracy,  were  put  to  death. ^' 

Alexander's  campaigns  in  the  northeastern  satrapies  completed  the 
subjugation  of  the  empire.  Along  the  line  of  his  marches  he  had  dis- 
tributed colonies,  and  had  given  attention  to  organization,  obviously 
insufficient;  for  every  successful  campaign  whetted  his  appetite  for 
conquest,  and  in  him  lived  the  spirit  of  the  explorer.  India  was  a 
land  of  wonders,  which  no  Hellenic  traveller  had  described,  which 
Heracles  and  Dionysus  alone  had  traversed.  Alexander  could  not 
admit  an  inferiority  to  these  divine  beings  or  neglect  the  opportunity 
to  add  this  marvellous  region  to  his  empire.  Thus  it  was  that  ro- 
mantic rather  than  practical  considerations  led  him  into  India. ^^ 

Alexander  in  India.  He  met  with  no  strong  opposition.  The 
country  was  divided  among  a  multitude  of  independent  kings,  some  of 
whom  became  his  allies.  But  the  army  experienced  unspeakable  suf- 
ferings from  the  intense  heat  and  the  downpour  of  rain  lasting  through 
many  days.  Alexander  wished  to  go  farther.  Thoughts  of  universal 
dominion  are  ascribed  to  him  by  Arrian;  but  the  military  harangue  put 
in  his  mouth  is  evidently  a  fiction;  and  through  the  myths  that  en- 
velop him  we  cannot  penetrate  to  his  true  desires.  Whatever  they 
may  have  been,  they  were  checked  by  the  refusal  of  his  troops  to  go 
farther.  As  the  omens  proved  unfavorable  to  an  advance,  Alexander 
acceded  to  their  wishes,  and  began  the  homeward  journey.  They 
passed  down  the  Indus,  at  whose  mouth  he  and  his  men  first  became 
acquainted  with  the  tides. ^® 

Having  organized  the  conquered  part  of  India  in  three  satrapies  and 
left  colonies  of  veterans,  he  began  his  return  march  through  the 
Gedrosian  desert.  This  way  was  chosen  from  love  of  exploration 
and  the  desire  to  surpass  Semiramis  and  Cyrus,  who  as  the  king 
heard  had  vainly  attempted  a  march  through  this  dangerous  waste. 
Again  his  soldiers  suffered  horribly,  and  many  succumbed  to  heat 

17  Prostration;   Arrian  iv.   11  f.    Conspiracy  of  the  pages;   Arrian  iv.  13  f . ;   Curtius  viii. 
5.  5;   Plut.  Alex.  53-5. 

18  Strabo  xv.   1.  5;   Arrian  v.  2. 

19  Arrian  v.  25  f.  f326  B.   C.)-     The  geographical  ideas  are  those  of  a  later  age. 

The    troops'    refusal;    Arrian    v.    27    f.     Return    beginning    on    the    Hydaspes;    vi.    1    ff. 
Tides;  vi.   19. 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE  451 

and  thirst  and  the  fatigue  of  marching  through  the  deep  sand.  In 
sixty  days,  however,  the  task  was  achieved  by  the  survivors,  and 
Alexander,  emerging  from  the  desert  with  the  shattered  remnant 
of  his  army,  reached  Carmania  in  the  autumn  of  325.-** 

Meanwhile  his  admiral,  Nearchus  of  Crete,  sailing  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Indus,  skirted  the  coast  of  the  Arabian  and  Persian  gulfs. 
His  careful  survey  was  of  great  value  for  the  promotion  of  maritime 
commerce  with  the  far  East,  while  his  observations  of  nature  and 
man  along  the  voyage  contributed  to  the  progress  of  science.  Along 
considerable  stretches  of  coast  the  inhabitants  were  savages,  ignorant 
of  iron,  but  making  use  of  stone  implements  and  of  their  finger  nails 
which  grew  long  and  formidable  like  the  claws  of  animals.  They 
dressed  scantily  in  the  skins  of  beasts  or  of  fish.  They  baked  bread 
of  meal  made  from  dried  fish;  and  it  is  seriously  asserted  that  their 
sheep  lived  on  fish.-^ 

Death  of  Alexander.  On  his  return  from  the  East  Alexander  took 
up  his  residence  at  Babylon.  With  him  there  could  be  no  thought  of 
rest.  The  empire  had  to  be  rescued  from  the  misrule  brought  into 
it  by  his  officers  during  the  long  campaigns  in  Bactria  and  India;  and 
a  prodigious  naval  armament  had  to  be  fitted  out  for  his  next  enter- 
prise —  the  conquest  of  Arabia  and  the  colonization  of  the  region  bor- 
dering the  Persian  gulf.  Urged  on  by  his  restless  energy,  these  prep- 
arations were  under  rapid  way.  Meanwhile  Alexander  was  ruining 
his  constitution  by  drinking  to  excess  and  wasting  his  strength  in  all- 
night  revels.  In  this  condition  he  was  unable  to  throw  off  the  germs 
of  fever  which  he  had  contracted.  He  died  accordingly  in  his  thirty- 
third  year.--  Although  his  lifetime  was  brief,  no  other  man  had  ever 
achieved  anything  to  compare  with  his  labors  either  in  conquest  or  in 
organization.  We  must  grant  that  his  success  was  largely  due  to  the 
excellent  army  laboriously  created  by  his  father,  to  the  able  generals 
trained  in  Philip's  school,  and  to  the  internal  weakness  of  the  Per- 
sian empire ;  at  the  same  time  great  credit  must  be  given  to  the  quick- 
ness and  accuracy  of  the  young  king's  observation  and  thought  and  to 
the  daring  rapidity  of  his  movements.  For  statesmanship  he  was 
too  romantic  and  egoistic;  and  although  he  remains  the  most  dazzling 

20  Arrian  vi.  22-6. 

21  Arrian,  Indica,  21-34. 

22  New    preparations;    Arrian    vii.    19    f.     Excesses   and   death;    Arrian   vii.    24-7;    Diod. 
xvii.  115  ff. ;  Plut.  Alex.  7S-7;  Justin  xii,   13-5. 


452  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

figure  in  military  annals,  it  cannot  be  soberly  stated  that  the  world  lost 
through  his  premature  death. 

During  Alexander's  careers  of  conquest  the  States  of  the  Greek 
homeland  continued  restive.  His  agents  and  officers  frequently  vio- 
lated the  compact  made  between  him  and  the  Hellenic  league. 
Tyrants  had  been  established  in  certain  Greek  cities  and  Macedonians 
had  preyed  upon  Hellenic  commerce.  Sparta  headed  a  Peloponnesian 
revolt ;  but  it  had  failed  and  she  was  compelled  to  submit.  With  the 
evident  design  of  subverting  the  liberties  of  the  Hellenes,  guaranteed 
by  his  father,  Alexander  let  it  be  known  that  he  wished  them  to 
consider  him  a  god  (324),  and  shortly  afterward  ordered  all  Greek 
States  to  receive  back  their  political  exiles.  Although  in  itself  hu- 
mane, this  move  in  behalf  of  the  banished  was  a  flagrant  violation 
of  the  federal  constitution  established  by  Philip,  and  unmistakable 
evidence  of  the  king's  despotic  intentions.  ^^ 

Demosthenes  fined.  In  Athens  materialistic  considerations,  but 
slightly  outweighing  patriotism,  barely  sufficed  to  keep  the  peace.  On 
several  occasions  Demosthenes,  made  cautious  by  long  experience, 
effectually  opposed  a  break  with  Alexander.  A  special  opportunity 
for  war  was  offered  the  Athenians  when  Harpalus,  chief  treasurer  of 
Alexander,  embezzling  the  royal  funds,  escaped  to  Greece.  On  this 
occasion  Demosthenes  dissuaded  the  Athenians  from  war,  but  was 
himself  prosecuted,  along  with  others,  on  a  charge  of  having  ac- 
cepted a  bribe  from  Harpalus.-*  Condemned  to  a  fine  of  fifty 
talents  and  unable  to  pay,  he  was  cast  into  prison,  whence  he  escaped 
and  went  into  exile.  The  facts  on  which  to  base  a  judgment  as  to 
his  guilt  or  innocence  are  wanting;  but  at  least  it  is  clear  that  the 
court  which  condemned  him  was  influenced  more  by  political  con- 
siderations than  by  evidence. 

Revolt  of  the  States  of  Greece.  When  word  of  Alexander's 
death  reached  Greece,  it  found  the  States  ready  for  revolt.  They  were 
dissatisfied  with  the  Macedonian  supremacy  and  their  love  of  inde- 
pendence was  still  strong.     Nearly  all  the  States  of  the  peninsula 

23  Violations  of  the  treaty;  Pseud.  Demosth.  Treaty  with  Alexander.  Suppression  of 
the  Lacedaemonian  revolt;  Diod.  xvii.  73.  5  f . ;  Curtius,  vi.  1-3.  Hellenic  acceptance  of 
deification;  p.  000  below.  Restoration  of  exiles;  Diod.  xvii.  109.  1;  xviii.  8.  2-7;  Justin 
xiii.  5;  Curtius  x.  7;  Hicks  and  Hill,  no.  164  and  Ditt.  I.  no.  306  (acts  of  Mytilene  and 
Tegea  for  restoring  their  exiles  under  the  king's  order).  The  Thebans  and  some  others 
excepted;  Plut.  Lac.  Proverbs,  221;  Diod.  xviii.  56.  5.  The  Hellenic  league  under  Philip; 
p.  000. 

24  Harpalus  and  the  trial  of  Demosthenes;  Theopompus,  in  FUG.  I.  325.  277  f . ;  Diod. 
xvii.  108.  4-8;  Curtius  x.  6  f.  Hypereides,  Against  Demosthenes ;  Deinarchus,  Against 
Demosthenes;  Plut.  Phoc.  21   f. ;  Demosth.  25  f. ;   Pseud.   Plut.    Ten  Orators,  846. 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE  453 

united  in  a  league  for  revolt,  the  most  prominent  being  the  Athenians 
and  the  Aetolians.  Demosthenes  employed  his  eloquence  in  the  crea- 
tion of  the  league,  and  was  now  returned  to  Athens.  Leosthenes, 
an  Athenian  general  of  experience  and  ability,  held  chief  command. 
He  defeated  Antipater,  governor  of  Macedon,  and  besieged  him  in 
the  fortress  of  Lamia.  From  this  circumstance  the  conflict  is  known 
as  the  Lamian  war.  Unfortunately  Leosthenes  was  killed;  the  enemy 
received  heavy  reinforcements  from  Asia,  and  the  Hellenic  cause 
failed.  Chosen  to  pronounce  the  funeral  oration  over  the  Athenians 
who  fell  early  in  the  war,  Hypereides,  while  paying  a  graceful  tribute 
to  the  dead,  upheld  in  evil  days  with  a  spirit  worthy  of  his  ancestors 
the  Hellenic  ideals  of  patriotism,  freedom,  and  human  dignity. 
The  coalition  dissolved  and  the  States  made  separate  terms  with  Anti- 
pater. Athens  had  to  receive  a  Macedonian  garrison  in  Munychia, 
to  limit  her  franchise  to  the  nine  thousand  wealthiest,  those  who  pos- 
sessed property  worth  at  least  2000  drachmas,  and  to  give  up  for 
punishment  the  chief  instigators  of  the  revolt.  Among  the  victims 
were  Hypereides  and  Demosthenes.  The  former  was  captured  and 
slain;  the  latter  took  poison  to  avoid  seizure.  An  epigram  of  the 
period  summarizes  well  the  aspiration  and  ther  failure  of  the  last  great 
Hellenic  orator :  — 

Orator,  mighty  in  spirit,  if  only  thy  strength  had  been  equal, 
Ares,  of  Macedon  God,  ne'er  would  have  ruled  over  Greece.^s 

In  this  war  the  higher  civilization  succumbed  to  the  lower;  a  people 
of  refined  thought,  speech  and  emotion  yielded  to  men  of  blood  and 
iron. 

Perdiccas,  regent  of  the  Empire.  Meanwhile  at  Babylon,  for 
the  time  being  the  centre  of  the  empire,  events  were  occurring  contrary 
to  the  intentions  which  Alexander  while  living  had  cherished.  As 
he  died  without  an  heir,  the  Macedonian  army  in  that  city  determined 
to  recognize  as  king,  Alexander's  feeble-minded  half-brother  Arrhi- 
daeus,  and  only  reluctantly  consented  that  the  great  conqueror's  son 
Alexander,  born  of  Roxana  after  the  father's  death,  should  be  asso- 
ciated with  Arrhidaeus  on  the  throne;  so  prejudiced  were  the  Mace- 
donians against  all  connection  with  Asiatics.     Perdiccas,  a  general 

25Diod.  xvii.  Ill;  xviii.  7-19;  Justin  xiii.  5;  Plut.  Phoc.  22-35;  Deniosth.  27-31;  Pseud. 
Plut.  Ten  Orators,  240  f.  (quoting  the  epigram).  849-51;  Paus.  i.  1.  3;  8.  2;  vii.  6.  5-7;  10. 
4  f. ;  X.  3.  4.  The  limitation  of  the  Athenian  right  to  vote  excluded  12,000  and  included 
9,000;  biod.  xviii.   18.  5.  „      ^  ..,•••     r 

2fi  Diod.  xviii.  2  ff . ;  Justin  xiii.  1  ff . ;  Curtius  x.  19  ff . ;  Satyrus,  m  Athen.  xui.  5; 
Plut.  Eumenes,  1.  3. 


454  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

under  Alexander,  became  regent  of  the  empire.  There  were  insur- 
rections to  put  down,  in  addition  to  that  in  Hellas,  and  still  uncon- 
quered  parts  of  the  empire  to  subjugate.-*'  This  work  was  accom- 
plished; but  meantime  the  two  kings  were  murdered,  before  either 
could  attain  to  authority;  and  the  machinations  of  Alexander's  great 
generals,  their  rivalries  and  coalitions,  began  to  threaten  the  unity  of 
the  empire.  Their  political  manoeuvres  and  civil  wars  fill  the  next 
two  decades  and  more,  323-301.  In  this  period  Antigonus,  perhaps 
the  ablest  and  most  energetic  general  surviving  the  Conqueror,  strove 
to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the  empire  under  his  own  monarchy.  The 
other  generals,  however,  combined  against  him.  In  the  battle  of 
Ipsus,  Phrygia,  301,  they  completely  overpowered  him;  and  he  ac- 
knowledged by  suicide  the  failure  of  his  ambition.-^ 

Division  of  Alexander's  Empire.  Abandoning  all  idea  of  unity, 
the  victors  proceeded  to  carve  the  empire  into  kingdoms  for  them- 
selves. Ptolemy  retained  Egypt,  of  which  he  had  long  been  governor, 
and  in  addition  Coele-Syria;  Seleucus  held  most  of  the  empire  east  of 
Mount  Taurus,  with  Greater  Phrygia  in  Asia  Minor;  Cassander,  son 
of  Antipater,  retained  Macedon  and  a  claim  to  the  headship  of  Greece, 
The  realm  of  Lysimachus  comprised  Thrace  and  the  greater  part  of 
Asia  Minor.^^  Ultimately  his  kingdom  was  dissolved,  whereupon  the 
sway  of  Seleucus  extended  to  the  Aegean  sea  (281).  In  this  manner 
the  empire  of  Alexander  came  to  be  divided  into  three  great  powers, 
Macedon,  Egypt,  and  the  kingdom  of  the  Seleucidae;  and  thus  it  re- 
mained till  the  intrusion  of  Rome  in  the  East. 

Agathocles,  The  ruling  class  in  these  monarchies  were  European, 
Greeks  and  Hellenized  Macedonians.  Over  the  Orientals  they  had 
little  difficulty  in  maintaining  the  supremacy  of  their  civilization.  In 
other  parts  of  the  Hellenic  world  the  problem  was  more  difficult.  In 
the  region  north  of  the  Black  Sea  the  natives  so  encroached  upon  the 
territory  of  the  Greeks  that  the  latter  no  longer  had  wheat  for  con- 
tinual exportation  but  often  had  to  import  it  for  their  own  use  from 
the  Aegean  region.-''  In  Sicily  and  southern  Italy  the  maintenance 
of  Hellenic  freedom  had  become  even  more  critical.     After  the  death 

27  For  the  period  322-301  see  Ferguson,  Greek  Imperialism,  l49  ff. ;  Beloch,  Griechische 
Geschichte,  III.  81  ff.  with  references  to  sources.  Battle  of  Ipsus;  Diod.  xxi.  1;  Plut. 
Demetrius,  28  f.  Antigonus  was  opposed  by  Cassander,  Lysimachus  and  Seleucus,  Ptolemy 
taking  no  part. 

28  The  four  monarchies;  Polybius  v.  67.  7;  Diod.  xxi.  1.  5;  Appian.  Syriaca,  55;  Plut. 
Demet.  30. 

29  Polyb.  iv.  38. 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE  455 

of  Timolcon  (337),  Syracuse  was  again  distracted  by  factional 
strife  and  Sicily  was  again  exposed  to  Carthaginian  aggression.  Af- 
fairs grew  continually  more  hopeless  till  Agathocles,  the  son  of  a 
potter,  seized  the  tyranny,  316.  Like  Dionysius  I,  he  was  a  soldier  of 
fortune,  who  through  sheer  ability  and  resolution  mounted  to  the 
summit  of  power.'"'  His  methods  and  career  closely  parallel  those  of 
the  earlier  tyrant.  By  clever  diplomacy,  sheer  luck,  and  a  show  of 
force,  by  a  combination  of  harshness  and  mildness,  he  intrenched 
himself  in  power  and  gained  the  hegemony  over  the  Greek  cities  of 
the  island. •■'^ 

The  chief  military  event  in  his  career  was  a  long  and  desperate 
war  with  Carthage.  The  Sicilians  had  not  yet  developed  a  political 
consciousness  of  their  nationality,  but  vacillated  between  him  and 
the  Semites  as  the  selfish  considerations  of  the  moment  dictated. 
On  one  occasion,  when  besieged  in  Syracuse  by  a  greatly  superior 
force,  with  no  allies  to  bring  him  aid  and  no  means  of  repelling  the 
enemy,  he  conceived  the  amazing  scheme  of  running  the  blockade  and 
of  transferring  the  war  to  Africa.  This  bold  design  laid  bare  the 
weakness  of  Carthage.  Her  dependent  towns  were  unfortified  and 
disloyal;  and  she  was  exposed  to  the  invader's  attack.  This  cam- 
paign, though  only  a  partial  success,  proved  the  beginning  of  his  good 
fortune.  Notwithstanding  victories  he  was  finally  compelled  to  make 
a  treaty  which  divided  the  island  nearly  equally  between  himself  and 
the  enemy.  ^^ 

After  this  event  he  assumed  the  title  of  King  of  the  Sicilians  in 
the  same  way  that  the  successors  of  Alexander  were  taking  upon 
themselves  the  royal  title.  With  these  sovereigns  Agathocles  through 
diplomatic  marriages  entered  into  close  relations.^^  Meanwhile  he 
gave  aid  to  the  Hellenic  cities  of  Italy  against  the  native  Lucanians 
and  gained  for  his  realm  a  strip  of  Italian  coast.  The  chief  aim  of  his 
life,  however,  was  the  expulsion  of  the  Phoenicians  from  Sicily;  and 
in  his  old  age  he  resumed  preparations  for  a  gigantic  struggle  with 
the  national  enemy.  To  this  end  he  negotiated  a  treat)  of  alliance 
with  Macedon.  At  last  there  dawned  the  hope  that  the  Hellenes  were 
so  organized  in  East  and  West  as  to  maintain  themselves  and  gain  new 

30  Diod.  xix.   9;   Justin  xxii.    1-2;   Polyaen.   v.  3.   8. 

31  Poly b.  ix.  23.  2;  Diod.  xix.   70  f.,   102.  ,      ^     ,      . 

32  The  war;  Diod.  xix.  102-xx.  79;  Justin  xxii.  3-8.    The  treaty;  Diod.  xx.  79.  5;  Justin 

xxii.   8.  -r..   ■  •  •  T     ^■ 

33  Royal  title;    Diod.   xx.    54.    1;   Head,   Hist.   Num.    182.    Diplomatic  marriages;    Justin 
xxiii.  2.  6;  Diod.  xxi.  2  (295  b.  c). 


456  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

ground.  The  realization  of  the  dream  of  Agathocles  would  have 
given"  the  western  Mediterranean  to  Hellenism  and  have  changed  the 
course  of  the  world's  history.  In  the  midst  of  his  preparations,  how- 
ever, he  died  (289).  In  his  last  moments  he  restored  the  republic 
to  the  Syracusans,  necessarily  with  its  fatal  weaknesses.  With  his 
death  vanished  the  dream  of  a  great  champion  of  Hellenism,  of  a 
statesman  and  warrior  scarcely  excelled  in  administrative  ability  and 
in  boldness  combined  with  prudence.^* 

The  growing  power  of  Rome.  The  western  Greeks  were  con- 
fronted by  enemies  so  powerful  and  aggressive  that  the  only  oppor- 
tunity for  national  independence  lay  in  centralization  under  a  military 
monarch.  This  truth  they  were  unable  to  appreciate;  and  accordingly 
the  death  of  Agathocles  made  their  situation  desperate.  Although  in 
Italy  the  Sabellians  had  spent  their  energy,  what  they  failed  to  conquer 
became  the  prey  of  Rome.  This  city,  situated  on  the  lower  Tiber, 
began  appreciably  to  extend  her  power  about  400  B.  c.  with  the  con- 
quest of  Veii,  an  Etruscan  city  in  the  neighborhood.  Conquered 
territory  Rome  either  annexed,  settling  it  with  her  own  people  and 
incorporating  the  acquired  population  as  citizens,  or  subjected  to  her 
military  command  by  treaties  of  alliance.  Her  just  treatment  of  de- 
pendents and  friends,  no  less  that  the  severity  with  which  she  punished 
revolting  allies,  contributed  to  the  growth  and  the  solidity  of  her  power. 
In  a  series  of  Latin  and  Samnite  wars,  (343-290),  involving  conflicts 
also  with  Etruscans,  Umbrians,  and  Gauls,  she  extended  her  suprem- 
acy over  the  peninsula  from  the  Rubicon  river  to  the  Greek  settlements 
in  the  extreme  South. ^^  In  326  Naples  entered  into  the  Roman  al- 
liance. Like  most  allies  of  Rome  she  retained  self-government  in 
local  affairs,  but  gave  military  aid  in  war.  As  a  maritime  State  her 
chief  military  obligation  lay  in  furnishing  ships  of  war  together  with 
their  crews. 

Meanwhile  the  still  free  Hellenic  cities  of  Italy  were  making  little 
concerted  effort  to  preserve  their  liberty.  There  was  a  union  among 
them  but  it  counted  for  little.  Tarentum,  the  most  populous  and 
wealthy,  sought  and  obtained  aid  of  her  mother  city  Sparta  and  after- 

34  Operations  in  Italy;  Diod.  xxi.  4;  Arist.  Mirab.  110;  Duris,  in  Athen.  xii.  59  (FHG. 
II.  p.  479).  Preparation  for  war  with  Carthage;  Diod.  xxi.  16.  Alliance  with  Macedon; 
xxi.  IS.  Death;  xxi.  16;  Justin  xxiii.  2.  Estimate  of  his  ability;  Scipio,  in  Polyb.  xv. 
35.  6. 

35  On  this  phase  of  Roman  expansion,   see   Frank,   Roman  Imperialism,   ch.    iii.   f. 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE  457 

ward  of  Epeirus.^*^  Unwilling  to  submit  to  discipline  or  inilitar}' 
authority  and  fearing  for  their  precious  liberties,  the  luxurious  inhabi- 
tants nullified  all  such  assistance  by  the  reluctance  of  their  cooperation. 
After  Rome  had  extended  her  supremacy  into  southern  Italy  Thurii, 
Rhegium,  and  Locri  entered  her  alliance  on  substantially  the  same 
terms  as  Naples.  Tarentum  alone,  with  a  few  unimportant  allies, 
remained  independent.^' 

Pyrrhus  in  Italy.  When  Roman  aggressions  forced  Tarentum 
into  war,  she  appealed  to  Pyrrhus,  king  of  Epeirus,  who  came  with 
an  army  of  25,000  men  organized  in  the  Macedonian  system.  Six 
years  he  waged  war  against  the  Romans  in  Italy  and  the  Cartha- 
ginians in  Sicily.  Had  he  been  well  supported  by  the  Greeks,  he 
might  have  secured  their  national  freedom  and  have  organized  them 
in  a  kingdom  for  himself;  but,  though  a  brilliant  general,  Pyrrhus 
wanted  statesmanlike  tact,  and  the  Hellenes  were  too  fond  of  the 
licenses  of  peace  to  sustain  his  absolute  command  and  to  fill  the  gaps 
in  his  ranks.  Finally  he  returned  to  Epeirus  (275),  and  three  years 
afterward  Tarentum  surrendered  to  the  Romans,  who  in  this  way  com- 
pleted their  supremacy  over  Italy. 

It  was  inevitable  that  Rome  and  Carthage,  the  two  great  powers  of 
the  West,  should  clash.  In  a  long,  severe  war  Rome  achieved  the  task 
that  had  proved  too  great  for  Dionysius,  Agathocles,  and  Pyrrhus,  the 
expulsion  of  the  Carthaginians  from  Sicily.^*  Instead  of  the  emer- 
gence of  a  Greek  nation,  however,  there  resulted  ultimately  a  deaden- 
ing bondage,  loss  of  political  freedom,  economic  retrogression,  depopu- 
lation, and  a  rapid  decline  of  culture.  Despite  obvious  advantages 
the  Roman  conquest  proved  in  the  end  an  irremediable  calamity. 

Hellenistic  kingdoms  of  the  East.  The  Hellenistic  kingdoms  of 
the  East  were  longer-lived.  Egypt,  a  strongly  centralized  monarchy 
protected  by  the  deserts  that  bordered  the  Nile  valley,  feared  no  assail- 
ant, so  long  as  she  could  maintain  a  powerful  navy.  The  Seleucid 
realm  covered  a  vast  territory  but  lacked  the  central  strength  neces- 
sary to  the  control  of  distant  satrapies.     One  by  one  India,  Bactria, 

36  Tarentum  was  first  aided  by  Archidamus,  the  Lacedaemonian  king  (Diod.  xvi.  62  f., 
88;  Theopomp.  in  FUG.  I.  p.  i22.  259  f.)  and  afterward  by  Alexander  of  Epeirus;  Livy 
viii.   17.   24;   Justin  xii.  2;   Pliny,  N.  H.   iii.   98. 

37  Niese,   Gesch.   der  griech.     und  viaked  Staaten,  ii.   27,  32. 

38  Tarentine  war;  Plut.  Pyrrhus  (from  contemporary  sources);  Livy,  ep.  xii— xv;  Appian, 
Sanmitica,  7-12;  Diod.  xxii. ;  Justin  xviii.  1  f . ;  xxiii.  3  f . ;  Polyb.  i.  6  f. ;  iii.  25;  vii.  4; 
viii.  28;  xviii.  28;  Strabo  vi.  3,  4.  For  the  first  war  between  Rome  and  Carthage  our  fun- 
damental source  is  Polybius,  i.,  although  this  book  was  intended  to  ser\e  meiely  as  an 
introduction  to  his  Histories.  For  other  sources  and  their  interpretation,  see  Frank, 
Roman  Imperialism,    ch.    vi.    with   notes. 


458  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Parthia,  and  other  far-away  dependencies  successfully  revolted.  In 
Asia  Minor  a  horde  of  invading  Celts  founded  the  kingdom  of  Galatia, 
while  further  to  the  west  Pergamum  became  an  independent  monarchy, 
Pontus,  Cappadocia,  and  other  old  kingdoms  reasserted  themselves. 
These  uprisings  soon  reduced  the  Seleucid  sovereignty  over  Asia 
Minor  to  an  empty  name. 

In  contrast  with  the  Seleucid  realm  Macedon  was  compact,  and  her 
inhabitants  were  virile  and  warlike.  The  ambition  of  her  kings  to 
rule  over  Greece  met  its  chief  obstacle  in  the  Aetolian  and  Achaean 
leagues,  which  in  the  third  century,  absorbing  a  great  part  of  the 
peninsula,  developed  a  respectable  military  power.  The  degree  of 
Macedonian  control  varied  with  the  ability  of  the  kings;  and  al- 
though for  considerable  stretches  of  time  the  Greek  States  enjoyed  in- 
dependence, in  the  end  the  Macedonian  king  Antigonus  gained  the 
headship  of  nearly  the  whole  peninsula  (221).  Recognizing  the  fed- 
eral principle,  he  joined  existing  combinations  in  a  general  union,  a 
league  of  leagues,  represented  by  a  federal  diet.  This  measure,  while 
securing  the  essentials  of  republicanism,  brought  Macedon  to  pre- 
eminence as  a  military  power. 

First  Macedonian  War  (215-205).  Philip,  successor  to  Anti- 
gonus, saw  in  Hannibal's  invasion  of  Italy  (Second  Punic  war,  218- 
201)  an  opportunity  to  strike  a  deadly  blow  at  the  power  of  Rome, 
which  retently  had  encroached  upon  the  Macedonian  sphere  of  in- 
fluence by  wars  with  the  Illyrian  pirates  (229-228,  219) ;  but  he  gave 
Hannibal  no  substantial  aid  and  only  roused  against  himself  a  new 
and  povv^erful  foe.  In  Roman  history  this  period  of  hostilities  with 
Philip  is  known  as  the  First  Macedonian  war  (215-205).  From  this 
time  the  political  interest  centres  in  the  extension  of  the  Roman  power 
over  the  eastern  half  of  the  Mediterranean  world.  The  Italian  na- 
tion was  mainly  agricultural.  The  masses  were  free  peasants,  who  as 
a  rule  owned  the  lands  they  tilled.  They  were  laborious,  hardy,  and 
belligerent;  and  the  government  at  Rome  was  a  centralized  aristocracy 
that  rested  its  principal  claim  to  leadership  upon  the  successful  con- 
duct of  war  and  diplomacy.  In  the  Carthaginian,  Seleucid,  and 
Egyptian  domains  the  masses  were  nearly  serfs,  wholly  unfit  for  war, 
and  most  of  the  fighting  men  accordingly  were  mercenaries.  Among 
all  the  States  were  antipathies  frequently  breaking  out  in  war  and 
rendering  them  weak  in  the  face  of  a  powerful  enemy. 

Certain  Greek  States  invited  Rome  to  engage  on  their  behalf  in  -i 


ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE  459 

war  against  Philip  (200-190).  With  the  aid  of  the  Aetolians,  Flam- 
ininus,  the  consul  in  command,  inllictcd  a  decisive  defeat  on  the 
Macedonians  at  Cynoscephalae  (197).  Declaring  the  Greek  States 
free  from  Macedon,  and  under  the  protection  of  Rome,  the  victor  with- 
dvew  his  forces. 

Roman  conquests.  No  long  time  afterward  the  Romans  waged 
war  against  Antiochus  the  Seleucid,  who  had  shown  great  ability  in 
restoring  the  empire.  They  defeated  him  at  Magnesia  (189),  and 
compelled  him  to  yield  to  them  all  territory  west  of  Mount  Taurus.  A 
Third  Macedonian  war,  culminating  in  the  battle  of  Pydna  (168), 
put  an  end  to  the  kingdom  of  Macedon.  For  the  time  being  Rome  or- 
ganized no  provinces  in  this  part  of  the  world  but  extended  her  pro- 
tectorate from  the  Adriatic  to  Mount  Taurus.  Although  her  govern- 
ing class  included  many  a  philhellene,  inevitably  the  more  brutal  side 
of  her  nature  revealed  itself  in  Greek  affairs.  Fatal  was  the  inability 
of  the  Hellenes  to  combine.  In  every  State  existed  a  Romanizing 
party  which  constantly  invited  interference.  It  required  but  a  slight 
pretext  to  bring  an  army  into  Greece.  In  146  the  province  of  Mace- 
donia was  established,  the  military  power  of  the  Achaean  league 
broken,  Corinth  destroyed,  and  the  Greeks  States  were  subjected  to 
the  governor  of  Macedonia.  This  was  the  year  in  which  Rome 
destroyed  Carthage  and  converted  her  immediate  domain  into  the 
province  of  Africa.  Twenty  years  afterward  the  kingdom  of  Per- 
gamum  was  converted  into  the  province  of  Asia  (126).  Meanwhile 
the  Seleucid  realm  rapidly  shrank,  and  the  dynasty  came  to  an  end 
(83).  In  63  Syria  became  a  province,  and  the  Roman  empire  was 
thus  extended  to  the  Euphrates  river.  While  these  events  were  taking 
place  in  Asia,  Egypt  had  greatly  declined  and  the  Ptolemies  were 
now  subservient  to  Rome.  In  the  year  30  their  line  ceased  with  the 
suicide  of  Cleopatra,  whereupon  Egypt  was  formally  subjected  under 
a  prefect  appointed  by  the  Roman  princeps. 

The  effect  of  Roman  conquest  on  civilization  in  Greece  and  the 
Orient  was  substantially  the  samejpfS  in  southern  Italy  and  Sicily. 
The  conquerors  robbed  their  subjects  of  material  resources  and  art 
treasures,  of  their  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  —  of  everything  in 
brief  that  might  have  conduced  to  the  further  upbuilding  or  even  per- 
petuation of  culture.  Despite  the  good  intentions  of  the  principles 
and  the  obvious  benefits  of  peace,  the  imperial  administration,  added 
to  the  pernicious  activities  of  avaricious  Roman  speculators,  grew  con- 


460 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


tinually  more  oppressive  and  grinding.  Viewed  in  this  light,  the  Ro- 
man conquest  operated  as  the  first  and  most  fundamental  cause  of  the 
decline  of  ancient  civilization.^^ 

39  The  period  of  conquest  is  here  condensed  because  usage  has  assigned  its  fuller  treat- 
ment to  Roman  history.  See  Pelham.  Outlines  of  Roman  History,  1-10  ff . ;  Cavaignac, 
Antiquite,  III.  236-393;  Niese,  Gesch.  der  Criech.  und  viak.  Staaten,  II.  SOS  to  the  end  of 
the  work. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Bury,  chs.  xvii,  xviii ;  Holm,  III,  chs.  xx-xxvi,  IV,  chs.  i-iv,  vii,  viii,  xv-xix, 
xxv-xxviii;  Beloch,  III,  1,  ch.  i-vi,  ix,  xv-xx;  Cavaignac,  III,  3-92;  Bevan, 
House  of  Seleucus  (London,  1902)  ;  Bouche-Leclercq,  Histoire  des  Seleucides 
(Paris:  Leroux,  1913);  Colin,  Rom  et  la  Grece  (Paris,  1905);  Dodge,  Alex- 
ander (Houghton,  Mifflin,  1890)  ;  Droysen,  Geschichte  des  Hellenismus  (Gotha, 
1877);  Ferguson,  Greek  Imperialism,  116-160,  180-194,  215-234,  240-248; 
Frank,  Roman  Imperialism  (Macmillan,  1914)  ;  Freeman,  History  of  Sicily; 
Freeman,  E.  A.,  History  of  Federal  Government  in  Greece  (2d.  ed.  by  Bury, 
London,  1893);  Hogarth,  Philip  and  Alexander  of  Macedon;  Holm,  Geschichte 
Siziliens;  Howard,  Comparative  Federal  Institutions  (University  of  Nebraska, 
1907);  Kaerst,  Geschichte  des  hellenistischer  Zeitalters  (Teubiier,  19011; 
Mahaffy,  Alexander's  Empire  (Gilman,  1898),  History  of  Egypt  under  the 
Ptolemaic  Dynasty  (London,  1899)  ;  Mitteis,  Wilcken,  GrundzUge  und  direston 
Qthie  der  Papyruskunde  (Leipzig,  1912);  Niese,  Geschichte  der  griechischen 
und  Makedonischen  Staatetn,  3  vols.  (Gotha,  1893-1903)  ;  Tarn,  Antigonus 
Gonatas    (Oxford,   1913);   Tilyard,  Agathocles   (Cambridge,   1908). 


PERSEPOLIS 


PTOLEMY  SOTER 
(National  Museum,  Naples) 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  ORGANIZATION  AND  ADMINISTRATION  OF  THE 
HELLENISTIC  STATES 

337-30  B.  c. 


Local  organization  of  Alexander's  empire.  Our  knowledge  of 
the  local  organization  of  Alexander's  empire,  inherited  from  the 
Persians  and  modified  by  himself  and  his  successors,  is  extremely 
scant  excepting  for  Asia  Minor  and  Egypt.  The  Conqueror  began  the 
work  of  reorganization  soon  after  the  victory  of  Granicus,  when  the 
Hellenic  cities  along  the  western  coast  of  Anatolia  came  into  his 
hands.  These  communities  he  treated  with  the  utmost  consideration. 
The  oligarchies  and  tyrannies,  which  had  favored  Persia,  he  over- 
threw; and  recalling  the  exiles,  he  established  democracies.  The 
cities  were  left  autonomous  under  a  body  of  laws  approved  by  the 

461 


462  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

king.  They  were  to  recognize  him  as  their  leader  in  war  and  to  fur- 
nish naval  or  land  forces  to  serve  under  his  command.  Those  espe- 
cially favored  were  exempt  from  all  payments,  whereas  the  free  city- 
states  which  had  not  won  their  way  to  the  king's  good  graces  rendered 
an  annual  payment  made  honorable  by  the  title  of  contributions.  All 
classes  of  cities  thus  far  mentioned  were  looked  upon  as  allies. 
Others  which  had  dared  resist  his  anns  were  held,  at  least  tempo- 
rarily, in  subjection  and  compelled  to  pay  the  ordinary  tribute. 

Rhodes.  Among  the  Greek  cities  to  profit  most  by  the  conquest 
were  those  along  the  western  coast,  and  on  the  neighboring  islands, 
of  Asia  Minor,  not  only  through  their  enlarged  opportunity  for 
commerce  but  also  through  the  paternal  favor  of  the  kings.  The 
most  brilliant  city  of  this  region  was  Rhodes,  which  had  taken  the 
place  of  Peiraeus  as  the  commercial  centre  of  the  Aegean  area  and 
had  extended  her  lines  of  traffic  throughout  the  Mediterranean  world. 
In  170  her  revenue  from  imports  and  exports,  probably  at  the  uni- 
form rate  of  two  percent,  was  1,000,000  drachmas,  which  represents 
a  commerce  diminutive  according  to  modern  standards,  but  splendid 
for  that  age.  .  This  State  maintained  her  independence  by  the  bravery 
of  her  citizens;  and  her  policy  was  to  cultivate  peace  and  friendship 
with  the  entire  world.  As  a  result  wealth  abounded.  The  poor 
were  provided  for  by  the  government,  and  the  rich  lived  luxuriously  in 
sumptuous  dwellings.  The  city  was  not  only  a  storehouse  for  mer- 
chandise but  the  home  of  art  and  eloquence.  The  citizens  were  in- 
telligent and  maintained  a  high  sense  of  public  honor.'^ 

Temple  estates.  In  the  interior  of  Asia  Minor  the  task  of  adapt- 
ing existing  conditions  to  the  will  of  the  conquerors  remained  to  the 
Seleucidae.  Here  were  found  two  forms  of  feudal  estates,  centering 
respectively  in  the  square-turreted  castles  of  the  grandees  and  in  the 
temples.  The  castles  had  existed  from  the  eighth  century  b.  c.  and 
had  been  tolerated  perforce  by  Lydian  and  Persian  kings.  In  the 
course  of  centuries  the  Hellenistic  rulers  suppressed  them,  and  either 
incorporated  the  estates  in  the  royal  domain  or  assigned  them  to  cities. 
In  the  temple  estate  the  priest  had  control  of  the  extensive  lands  be- 
longing to  it  and  exercised  authority  over  the  people,  who  in  some 
communities  were  numbered  by  the  thousands."     Among  them  were 

1  Revenue;  Polyb.  xxxi.  7.  12.  The  range  of  her  traffic  and  her  friendship;  v.  88-90. 
The  poor;  H.  Civ.  no.  236  (Strabo).  High  standard  of  honor  generally  maintained;  Polyb. 
xxxi.   25. 

2  Feudal  castles;  II.  Civ.  no.  175  (Plut.  Eumenes);  cf.  Radet,  La  Lydie,  86  ff. ;  Ramsay, 
Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  II.  416  ff.  Temple  estates;  Strabo  xi.  8.  4;  xii.  2.  3.  5; 
3.  32-6  (survivals  to  Roman  times). 


HELLENISTIC  STATES,  337-30  B.  C.  463 

attendants  on  the  deity  but  the  great  majority  cultivated  the  soil  as 
peasants.  At  the  annual  festival  in  honor  of  the  deity  there  was 
held  a  fair,  at  which  the  peasants  could  display  their  produce  for  sale 
and  make  the  purchases  of  the  traders  who  came  in  from  neighboring 
lands.  The  gathering  of  the  people  from  near  and  far  for  worship, 
trade,  and  pleasure,  was  a  source  of  profit  to  the  priests.  The  Hellen- 
istic kings  dare  not  suppress  these  religious  potentates,  but  deprived 
them  of  political  power  and  in  some  instances  of  a  part  of  their  terri- 
tory. Often  the  king  settled  a  colony  on  a  temple  estate  and  sub- 
jected the  priest  to  the  government  of  the  new  city. 

Alexander's  plan  of  colonization.  Alexander  founded  a  great 
num])er  of  colonies,  more  than  seventy  as  Plutarch  states,  distributing 
them  over  the  empire  in  accordance  with  its  needs;  and  the  Seleucidae, 
following  in  his  footsteps,  planted  an  equal  number.  They  were  to 
provide  homes  for  the  worn-out  veterans,  to  garrison  the  conquered 
country,  and,  at  least  in  Alexander's  plan,  to  Hellenize  the  empire. 
As  a  rule  therefore  they  included  a  nucleus  of  retired  soldiers  and  of 
Greek  business  men,  around  whom  clustered  a  multitude  of  natives. 
Among  the  mercenaries  of  the  Seleucidae,  however,  were  few  Greeks; 
and  in  general  it  may  be  said  that  Hellenic  civilization  penetrated 
but  a  little  way  beyond  the  walls  of  the  colony.  These  settlements 
varied  greatly  in  size.  Among  the  largest  Alexandria  numbered 
300,000  free  souls  and  perhaps  100,000  slaves.  ^  Antioch,  the 
Seleucid  capital,  was  but  slightly  inferior,  whereas  Seleucia  on  the 
Tigris  continued  to  grow  till  in  the  first  century  of  our  era  the  popula- 
tion numbered  600,000. 

The  wealth  of  Egypt.  The  importance  of  Alexandria  came  not 
merely  from  her  position  as  capital  of  a  wealthy  kingdom,  but  even 
more  from  her  commercial  activities.  *  Her  harbors  brought  her  into 
touch  with  the  whole  Mediterranean  world,  while  the  canal  which 
connected  her  with  the  Nile  was  the  first  stage  of  the  long  voyage  to 
India.  From  the  Nile  it  was  possible  to  convey  merchandise  to  the 
Red  Sea  either  by  canal  or  overland.  Usually,  however,  the  merchant 
fleets  of  Egypt  sailed  along  the  coast  of  Arabia,  till  they  met  and  ex- 
changed cargoes  with  the  fleets  of  India.  Under  the  late  Ptolemies 
this  traffic  declined,  to  be  magnificently  revived  by  Augustus.  In 
addition  to  commerce  Egypt  derived  great  wealth  from  her  manu- 

3  Plut.  Fortune  of  Alexander,  i.  S,  328  e  (the  number  is  doubtless  exaggerated). 

4  Alexandria;    Diod.    xviii.    52.    6.     Seleucia;    Strabo    xvi.    2.    5;    Pliny,    N.    H.    vi.    122. 
Alexander  had  Dlanned  to  make  Babylon  a  great  commercial  centre:    Arrian  vii.   IS- 


464  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

factures.  Her  shops  produced  substantially  all  the  papyrus  used 
ihroughout  the  world;  and  with  the  vast  number  of  writers  in  the  city 
the  publication  of  books  became  a  thriving  business.  The  aromatics 
imported  from  Arabia  and  from  far-off  India  were  here  transformed 
into  incense  and  toilet  perfumes.  Drugs  and  medicines  were  pre- 
pared for  use.  In  the  neighborhood  an  abundance  of  vitrifiable  earth 
was  employed  for  the  production  of  glass  of  varied  rich  colors. 
Equally  important  were  the  textiles,  including  tapestries  and  both 
coarse  and  fine  dress  materials.  The  fine  linens  of  Biblical  renown 
were  woven  in  various  localities  and  brought  down  to  Alexandria  for 
export.  Doubtless  many  articles  of  use  and  luxury  were  manufac- 
tured here  for  home  consumption  or  export  of  which  we  have  no 
knowledge.  The  greatest  product  of  the  country  was  wheat.  The 
hard  labor  of  millions  of  peasants  under  the  strict  supervision  of  the 
Ptolemies  yielded  not  only  enough  to  supply  home  needs  but  an  enor- 
mous quantity  for  exportation.^ 

Antioch  and  Seleucia.  In  like  manner  Antioch,  situated  on  the 
Orontes  river  about  twelve  miles  from  the  Mediterranean,  was  not 
only  an  imperial  capital,  but  the  beginning  of  a  great  caravan  route 
from  the  sea  to  Mesopotamia  and  Persia.  *^  With  the  conquest  of  the 
Orient  the  Greeks  had  ceased  to  be  a  purely  maritime  people  and 
were  conducting  an  extensive  overland  trade  along  the  network  of 
roads  built  by  the  Persian  kings  and  their  Hellenistic  successors. 
East  of  Antioch  the  route  passed  through  Seleucia,  which  was  also 
the  chief  trading  intermediatry  between  the  Persian  gulf  and  the  up- 
per waters  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  rivers.'  It  was  the  successor 
of  Babylon  and  the  parent  of  Bagdad. 

Blending  of  Nationalities.  The  proportion  of  Greek  to  foreigners 
must  have  varied  greatly  according  to  circumstances.  Naucratis, 
Egypt,  for  example,  contained  natives;  but  the  Greeks  of  that  city 
held  aloof  from  social  and  marital  relations  with  them,  and  therefore 
maintained    their    language    in    relative   purity.     Ptolemais,    Egypt, 

5  Commerce;  Strabo  ii.  5.  12;  xvii.  1,  13;  Agatharchides,  Erythraean  Sea,  103;  see  also 
Periplus  Letter  of  Hadrian,  in  Flavius  Vopiscus,  Saturniniis,  8.  5;  Firnius,  3.  Medicine; 
Homer,  Od.  iv.  229;  Theophrastus,  De  caus.  plant,  vi.  27.  Perfumes  Plinv,  N.  H.  xii.  59. 
Glass;  Strabo  xvi.  1.  25;  Athen.  xi.  28;  Cicero,  Pro  Rab.  Post.  14.  40.  Tapestries;  Plautus, 
Pseudolus,  147;  Miintz,  Tapisscrie,  39.  Linen;  Strabo  xvii.  1.  41;  Pliny,  N.  H.  xix.  14. 
Production  of  wheat;   p.   403. 

6  Strabo  xvi.  2.  4-7. 

7  strabo  vi.  1.  5;  2.  5.  Royal  road  to  Susa;  Hdt.  v.  52.  4.  Euphrates  bridged;  Strabr 
xvi.  1.  21,  23;  Pliny,  N.  H.  v.  86. 


HELLENISTIC  STATES,  337-30  B.  C.  465 

seems  to  have  been  equally  exclusive.  Alexandria,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  exceedingly  mixed.  To  Greeks  and  Macedonians  must  be  added 
Egyptians,  Semites,  Persians,  and  many  other  nationalities.  These 
people  were  by  no  means  equal.  As  a  rule  the  Macedonians  and 
Hellenes,  generally  grouped  together  as  Greeks,  were  the  only  citizens. 
They  had  their  tribes  and  demes  like  those  of  Athens,  their  magis- 
trates, council,  and  assembly.  People  of  other  speech  were  only 
metics  with  such  rights  as  the  city  or  the  king  assured  them.  In 
the  country  and  the  native  towns  the  Greeks  formed  but  a  small 
percentage  of  the  population.  Mercenaries  of  that  nationality  on 
lands  held  directly  from  Ptolemy  and  small  business  men  scattered 
widely  along  the  Nile  valley  were  more  inclined  to  intermarry  with 
the  natives;  and  from  these  unions  arose  a  hybrid  class,  who  spoke 
two  tongues  and  bore  both  Greek  and  native  names. ^ 

Satrapies.  The  subject  territory,  as  distinguished  from  the  free 
Hellenic  cities,  was  organized,  as  under  Persian  rule,  in  great  ad- 
ministrative districts  termed  satrapies.  It  was  clearly  the  Con- 
queror's intention  to  employ  both  natives  and  Macedonians  as  satraps, 
while  taking  the  precaution  of  transferring  their  military  powers  to 
special  officers  of  his  own  nationality.  This  attempt  to  win  the 
Persian  aristocracy  in  his  conflict  with  Darius  proved  a  failure,  and  in 
the  end  he  was  obliged  to  substitute  Macedonians  as  governors.  A 
check  on  the  satraps  was  found  in  keeping  the  commanders  of  great 
cities  and  fortresses  directly  dependent  on  the  king,  and  even  more 
in  the  separation  of  the  financial  from  the  military  and  civil  adminis- 
tration. The  finances  of  Egypt,  for  example,  Alexander  placed  in 
the  hands  of  Cleomenes,  a  Greek  of  Naupactus.  During  the  long  ab- 
sence of  the  Conqueror  in  the  Northeast  and  East,  Cleomenes,  through 
his  absolute  control  of  the  revenue,  made  himself  in  reality  dictator 
of  Egypt,  and  used  his  authority  for  frightful  extortions.  The  treas- 
ury of  the  empire  was  established  at  Babylon  in  charge  of  Harpalus, 
a   friend  of  the   Conqueror's   youth.®     During  the  long   absence   of 

8  Kenyon,  Greek  Papyri  in  the  British  Museum,  III.  p.  71  ff.  (first  century  A.  D.); 
Chrcst.  no.  27  (second  century  a.  d  ) ;   cf.   Hermeias,   in  Athen.   iv.   32. 

Polyb.  in  Strabo  xvii.  1.  12.  Excerpts  from  the  laws  of  Alexandria,  in  Bechtel,  (DikaiO' 
niata.)  Though  we  lack  absolute  proof  of  a  council  and  assembly  in  this  city,  their  exist- 
ence is  implied  in  the  laws  mentioned  above.  The  Jews  had  their  own  organization, 
favored  by  the  kings,  but  thev  were  not  citizens.  Cleruch  holdings  of  mercenaries; 
H.  Civ.  no.   183  f.     Hybrid  class; 'no.   191  ff. 

9  Arrian  i.   23;   iii.   5,   16,   18,   19;   Curtius  v.   2.   8,   17. 

Babylon;  Diod.  xvii.  64.  5;  Curtius  v.  1.  43.    Susa;  Arrian  iii.   16.  9;  Curtius  v.  2.   16. 
Arrian  iii.  5;   H.   Civ.   no.   180  f. 


466  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  king  Harpalus  squandered  a  great  part  of  the  treasury  and  escaped 
with  the  rest  to  Greece.^"  In  greed  and  disloyalty  he  was  but  a  type 
of  the  high  officialdom  of  the  new  empire. 

Failure  to  assimilate  European  and  Asiatic  troops.  No  ob- 
stacle, however,  discouraged  Alexander  from  his  purpose  of  blending 
Asiatics  and  Europeans  in  one  race  socially  and  politically  equal. 
He  had  married  Roxana,  a  Bactrian  princess,  and  afterward  added  a 
wife  from  each  of  the  two  royal  Persian  lines.  At  the  same  time  his 
great  field-marshals,  Perdiccas,  Ptolemy,  Seleucus,  and  Nearchus, 
and  other  high  officials  to  the  number  of  eighty,  took  to  themselves 
Persian  brides.  On  all  without  exception  Alexander  bestowed 
dowries.  At  the  same  time  he  made  presents  to  the  ten  thousand 
Macedonian  troops  who  had  married  Asiatic  women. ^^  From  the 
beginning  of  his  campaigns  Alexander  had  introduced  native  troops 
into  his  army;  and  the  majority  of  the  force  with  which  he  invaded 
India  were  Asiatics.  After  his  return  he  planned  to  dismiss  the 
aged  and  crippled  Macedonians  and  to  substitute  for  them  30,000 
native  youths  trained  and  equipped  in  ISIacedonian  style.  The 
veterans,  finding  themselves  about  to  be  displaced  by  men  of  a  race 
whom  they  despised,  were  mortally  offended  and  broke  out  in  mutiny. 
The  king  yielded  to  the  extent  of  giving  his  Macedonian  forces  the 
higher  honor  and  pay.^-  Despite  every  effort  the  attempt  to  assim- 
ilate Europeans  and  Asiatics  in  the  army  proved  a  failure,  and  it 
was  abandoned  after  his  death. 

A  universal  empire,  ^^'hile  temporizing  with  his  Macedonian 
troops,  Alexander  steadily  advanced  toward  the  goal  of  his  ambition,  a 
universal  empire  emancipated  from  every  national  restriction,  an 
empire  that  knew  no  distinction  of  race  or  people.  It  was  a  new 
conception  far  broader  than  anything  the  world  had  known  before, 
and  formed  the  political  basis  for  a  larger  idea  of  humanity  afterward 
taking  form  in  Stoicism  and  Christianity.  Although  there  survived 
feebly  a  spark  of  popular  sovereignty  in  the  military  assembly  of 
Macedonians,  the  source  of  power  had  become  the  person  of  the 
monarch.  The  absolute  idea  grew  upon  Alexander  throughout  his 
conquests,  largely  as  a  product  of  his  own  experiences.  The  young 
king's  extreme  exertions,  his  incessant  activity  night   and  day,  his 

10  Arrian  iii.  6.  4  ff . ;  Diod.  xvii.   108.  4-8;  Plut.  Alex.  10;  Phoc.  21  f . ;    19.   7. 

11  Arrian  vii.  4.   4;   H.  Civ.   no.  235  (Athenaeus);   Diod.   xvii.    107.   6;   Justin  xii.   10.   9  f . ; 
Plut.   Alex.   70;   Eumenes,  1. 

13  Arrian   vii.    6,   8-12;    Diod.    xvii.    109;    Justin   xii.    11    f. ;    Curtius   x.    2.    8   ff . ;    Plut. 
Alex.  71. 


HELLENISTIC  STATES,  337-30  B.  C.  467 

physical  sufferings  from  numerous  wounds,  and  his  excessive  inclina- 
tion to  drink,  while  impairing  his  physical  condition  co()perated  with 
his  marvellous  successes  in  greatly  affecting  his  mind.  Month  by 
month  his  companions  saw  in  him  a  growing  love  of  flattery  and  an 
increasing  irritability  at  every  opposition  however  slight.  No  longer 
content  with  ordinary  subservience,  he  demanded  worship;  for  that  is 
what  prostration  meant  to  a  Greek  or  a  Macedonian,  Most  of  those 
who  followed  him  through  Asia,  dependent  as  they  were  upon  his 
caprice,  granted  him  the  honor  with  varying  sincerity.  ^^  Not  satis- 
fied with  their  homage,  he  permitted  it  to  be  made  known  to  the  Hel- 
lenic cities  of  the  home  land  that  they  ought  to  decree  him  a  god. 
With  characteristic  independence  the  Lacedaemonians  replied :  "  Since 
Alexander  wishes  to  be  a  god,  let  him  be  one."  At  Athens  Demos- 
thenes at  first  protested,  but  afterward  changing  sides,  advised  his 
countrymen  to  give  the  bauble:  "  Let  us  acknowledge  him  the  son  of 
Zeus  for  all  I  care,  or  the  son  of  Poseidon,  if  he  prefers  it."  Athens 
accordingly  decreed  to  place  him  as  Dionysus  among  the  gods  of  the 
city.  Other  states  took  similar  action;  temples  for  his  worship  arose 
in  various  places;  and  on  his  return  from  Babylon,  he  gave  audience 
to  "  sacred  legations "  rather  than  political  embassies,  come  from 
Hellas  to  pay  him  divine  honors.^* 

The  god-king  introduced  into  Europe.  Among  the  Greeks  the 
boundary  between  human  and  divine  had  never  been  sharply  drawn. 
Great  men  in  death  became  heroes,  and  the  god  Dionysus  had  lived  as 
a  man  on  earth.  Every  Greek  State  rested  on  a  religious  foundation; 
and  it  was  but  natural  that  Alexander  should  seek  such  a  basis  for  his 
empire.  The  Orient  supplied  the  atmosphere  of  servile  adoration 
of  the  king  as  superman  or  god.  To  this  condition  Hellenic  thought 
and  usage  had  to  be  adapted.  Among  the  Greeks  the  motive  to  his 
deification  was  fear  or  the  desire  to  flatter  or  the  hope  of  gaining  favor. 
A  common  sentiment,  too,  was  the  desire  for  protection  or  gratitude  for 
deliverance  from  peril,  hence  the  frequent  epithet  Savior  applied  to 
the  Hellenistic  kings.^^  Alexander  must  have  assumed  the  title  of 
divinity  not  merely  to  satisfy  his  craving  for  honors,  but  as  the  last 

13  p.  449  f. 

14  Aelian,  \'ar.  fiist.  ii.  19;  Plut.  Lac.  Proverbs,  219  e.  The  word  came,  probably  not  as 
an  edict,   but  as  a  suggestion  from  one  of  his  courtiers. 

Hypereides,  Against  Deviosth.  31;  Deinarchus,  Against  Demosth.  94;  Timaeus,  in  Polyb. 
xii.  12  b;  Pseud.  Plut.  Ten  Orators,  842  d;  Valerius  Maximus  vii.  2.  ext.  13.  Temple  at 
Megalopolis;   Paus.   viii.  32.   1.     Sacred  legations;   .'Xrrian  vii.   23.   2. 

in  Motives  to  deification;  cf.  Ditt.  Or.  nos.  219,  212;  Michel,  no.  40;  Phylarchus,  in 
Athen.   vi.   66;   Appian,  Syr.   65. 


468  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

step  toward  absolutism.  Even  on  the  throne  a  mere  man  was  bound 
at  least  by  the  general  laws  of  humanity  and  was  responsible  to  public 
opinion,  but  a  god  was  above  all  law  and  accountability.  After  some 
hesitation  his  successors  followed  his  example  and  thus  perpetuated 
the  god-king.  In  this  manner  was  introduced  into  Europe  an  essen- 
tially Oriental  idea  of  the  relation  between  the  State  and  the  indi- 
vidual. While  Egyptians  and  Asiatics  were  grovelling  in  the  dust 
before  their  kings,  the  Greek  republics  had  created  for  at  least  a  part 
of  their  population  a  condition  of  freedom  under  self-government. 
In  the  individual  the  result  was  the  perfection  of  manliness,  the  de- 
velopment of  a  high  type  of  self-control  and  self-respect,  in  society  and 
government  a  recognition  of  the  dignity  and  worth  of  the  individual 
souls  that  made  up  the  body  politic.  The  Hellenistic  kingdom,  how- 
ever, put  an  end  to  the  growth  of  freedom,  and  in  its  stead  universal- 
ized the  Oriental  slavery  of  the  people  and  gave  it  an  indefinite  lease 
of  life.  However  sagacious,  men  were  no  longer  to  govern  them- 
selves or  to  give  expression  to  their  views  for  the  improvement  of 
State  and  society.  Government  was  to  rest  in  the  hands  of  a  God  or 
of  a  superior  sacred  human  being  with  a  mandate  from  God,  who 
brooked  no  opposition  and  needed  no  control,  who  selfishly  or  benevo- 
lently devised  and  executed  with  divine  wisdom  whatever  he  pleased 
for  mankind.  The  idea  passed  on  from  Alexander  to  the  Roman 
principles  and  the  Byzantine  emperors,  and  to  the  modern  monarchs 
who  rule  by  divine  right. 

While  the  government  of  Macedon  rested  on  the  traditional  basis 
of  nationality,  that  of  the  Seleucid  realm  and  of  Egypt  was  an 
artificial  structure:  the  administrative  system  was  an  organization  of 
Greek  conquerors  for  the  exploitation  of  the  natives  and  was  wholly 
devoid  of  national  or  patriotic  feeling.  The  masses  might  sincerely 
accept  the  godship  of  the  sovereign,  but  his  appeal  to  the  higher 
officials  could  only  reach  their  self-interest,  their  hope  of  reward  or 
fear  of  punishment.  The  want  of  moral  fibre  that  only  patriotism 
and  national  feeling  could  supply  was  a  fundamental  weakness  of 
both  kingdoms. 

The  Aetolian  league.  The  Achaean  league.  With  the  Hel- 
lenistic kingdoms  we  may  contrast  the  federations  of  the  Greek  home- 
land. The  union  established  by  Philip,  arbitrarily  created  and 
abounding  in  discord,  proved  short-lived.  Soon  afterward  the 
Aetolian    league   came    into  prominence.     Originally   an    ethnos    of 


HELLENISTIC  STATES  337-30  B.  C.  469 

primitive  character,  Aetolia  began  toward  the  close  of  the  fourth 
century  to  assume  the  character  of  a  union  of  cities.  Early  in  the 
third  she  annexed  Delphi,  and  thereafter  employed  the  influence  of 
the  amphictyony  in  rapidly  extending  her  league  till  it  came  to  include 
nearly  all  central  Greece,  southern  Thessaly,  and  temporarily  various 
cities  of  Peloponnese.  ^^  In  like  manner  Achaea,  beginning  as  an 
ethnos,  changed  somewhat  more  slowly  to  the  federal  organization  of 
city-states.  It  was  not  till  the  inclusion  of  Sicyon  in  251  that  the 
Achaean  league  could  count  as  a  power  in  Greece."  Thereafter  fol- 
lowed the  admission  of  Corinth  and  other  neighbors  in  rapid  succes- 
sion till,  early  in  the  second  century,  it  included  all  Peloponnese. 
There  was  rivalry  between  the  two  leagues,  involving  the  shifting  of 
cities  back  and  forth,  together  with  frequent  Macedonian  interference. 
Although  both  leagues  engaged  in  forcible  annexations,  the  great  ma- 
jority of  admissions  were  at  the  request  of  the  incoming  States. 

Government  of  the  leagues.  The  general  principles  of  organiza- 
tion were  the  same  for  the  two  leagues.  The  fundamental  institution 
of  government  was  the  assembly  of  all  the  citizens,  like  that  of  the 
city-state.  It  is  known  that  in  the  Achaean  league  the  voting  was  by 
cities,  presumably  all  present  from  a  given  city  determined  among 
themselves  the  attitude  to  be  taken  by  their  State,  which  thereuupon 
probably  cast  a  single  vote,  whatever  its  population. ^^  By  the  side 
of  the  assembly,  as  in  the  city-state,  was  the  council,  in  the  Aetolian 
league  and  probably  in  the  Achaean,  representing  the  cities  according 
to  their  population. ^^  Elections  of  magistrates  and  other  matters  of 
primary  importance  fell  to  the  assembly,  whereas  the  council,  with  its 
more  frequent  sessions,  gave  attention  to  lesser  business  and  to  such 
as  could  not  await  the  gathering  of  the  people.  The  chief  magistrate 
was  the  general;  in  the  Achaean  league  there  were  at  first  two  and 
afterward  one,  the  commander  of  the  army  and  highest  civil  executive. 
The  abandonment  of  the  old  republican  board  of  officers  in  favor 
of  a  single  magistrate  added  efficiency  to  the  administration. 

16  Philip's  federation;  p.  390;  Ethnos;  p.  69  f.  Federation  first  mentioned  for  314; 
Diod.   xix.   66.   2.     Delphi  in  the  league;   Plut.   Denieir.  40. 

17  Earlier  history;   Polyb.   ii.   37-71;   Plut.   Aratus,  9  ff. 

18  Livy  xxxii.  22.  2,  8-12;  23.  1;  xxxviii.  32.  1.  It  is  not  known  whether  the  Aetolian 
assembly  {SGDI.  no.  1412.  8;  Polyb.  xx.  10.  11;  Diod.  xix.  66.  2;  Livy  xxxvi.  29.  1)  voted 
by  heads  or  by  States. —  In  the  brief  account  of  the  leagues  given  in  this  volume  no  attempt 
is  made  to  distinguish  between  the  full  as.sembly  and  that  lesser  body  which  might  be 
described  either  as  a  smaller  assembly  or  a   larger  council. 

19  For  Aetolia;  H.  Civ.  no.  203  (Michel,  no.  22).  For  the  Achaean  council,  although  we 
lack  information,  we  may  assume  the  same  principle  of  comoosition,  as  the  Greek  council 
(p.  46,  105,  108)  in  general  was  thus  composed,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a  great  State 
like  Corinth  would  be  willing  to  reduce  herself  to  a  level  with  the  most  insignificant  town 
of  Achaea.  The  two  principles,  in  assembly  and  council  respectively,  would  afford  an  ade- 
quate balance. 


470  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Federal  government.  The  federal  government  had  control  of 
weights,  measures  and  coinage.  It  conducted  negotiations  with 
foreign  powers,  declared  war,  and  contracted  alliances.  In  sole  com- 
mand of  the  military  forces  it  gave  orders  to  the  members  to  furnish 
their  several  contingencies.  Each  constituent  city  was  guaranteed 
autonomy  under  a  republican  constitution,  implying  security  and 
justice  for  herself  and  her  individual  citizens.  Her  chief  obligation 
was  to  put  into  the  field  the  number  of  troops  demanded  and  to  sup- 
port them  at  her  own  expense. -° 

In  the  preservation  of  liberty  the  federal  union  contrasted  favor- 
ably with  the  kingdoms  of  that  age;  and  in  the  development  of 
strength  it  was  a  great  improvement  upon  the  city-state.  A  solution 
of  the  most  difficult  of  Hellenic  problems  was  at  length  found  in  the 
creation  of  a  system  of  organization  adapted  to  the  Greek  character. 
It  is  true  that  in  time  of  war  the  federal  government,  in  entrusting 
to  the  States  the  levy  and  support  of  soldiers,  remained  excessively 
weak;  and  it  was  a  misfortune  that  two  rival  leagues  existed  side  by 
side,  often  at  war  with  each  other,  while  their  freedom  was  menaced 
by  the  greatly  superior  powers  of  the  Hellenistic  kingdoms  and  the 
Roman  republic.  Their  inability  to  survive  under  these  adverse  con- 
ditions does  not  detract  from  the  truth  that  the  federal  union  was 
the  most  highly  developed  political  creation  of  the  world  before  the 
rise  of  modern  representative  democracies,  such  as  those  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States."^ 

Royal  domains.  The  gigantic  empire  of  Alexander  and  his  suc- 
cessors' kingdoms  rested  on  a  condition  of  the  laboring  masses  which 
verged  closely  upon  serfdom.  Round  about  the  free  cities  in  western 
Asia  Minor,  and  more  extensively  in  other  parts  of  the  realm,  were 
the  great  domains  of  the  Persian  king,  which  Alexander  seized  for 
himself.  They  were  cultivated  by  peasants,  who  lived  in  villages 
and  were  bought  and  sold  along  with  the  lands  they  tilled,  who  were 
not  absolutely  bound  to  the  soil,  but  could  move  about  from  one 
locality  to  another,  evidently  with  the  permission  of  their  lord.  Not 
wholly  at  the  mercy  of  their  local  master,  they  were  under  the  juris- 
diction and  legal  protection  of  judges  appointed  for  them  by  the  king. 
They  paid  their  sovereign  a  tribute  in  money  or  in  kind  —  a  tenth 

20  In  the  Achaean  league  the  States  attended,  to  the  coinage  under  federal  authority; 
Polyb.  ii.  37;  Head,  Hist.  Num.  A\7.  In  Aetolia  the  federal  government  issued  the  coins; 
Head,  335.     Polyb.   iv.   7;   x.  23;   xvi.  36. 

21  Cf.   the  thirteen  American  colonies  under  the   Articles  of  Confederation. 


HELLENISTIC  STATES,  337-30  B.  C.  471 

of  the  annual  produce.'"'  There  were  peasants,  too,  on  the  feudal 
estates  and  on  the  communal  lands  of  cities,  who  rendered  their  dues 
to  the  lord  of  the  commonwealth.  These  arrangements  had  existed 
under  the  Persian  rule  and  were  adopted  with  little  modification  by 
Alexander. 

Similar  were  conditions  in  Egypt.  While  retaining  proprietor.ship 
of  all  the  soil,  Ptolemy  gave  the  income  of  many  large  estates  to  his 
officials  and  other  favorites.  The  temples  also  held  in  grant  broad 
fertile  tracts.  To  his  mercenaries  the  king  gave  permission  on  fixed 
terms  to  reclaim  and  use  waste  lands.  In  peace  these  cleruchs,  "  lot- 
holders,"  made  their  living  by  agriculture,  but  stood  ever  ready  to 
answer  the  sovereign's  call  to  arms.  Vast  tracts  of  grainland, 
specifically  described  as  royal  domain,  were  leased  in  small  lots  to 
peasants,  who  had  to  render  a  fixed  number  of  measures  to  the  acre. 
The  king  possessed  a  monopoly  of  the  oil  industry  and  required  for 
his  use  the  production  of  a  certain  number  of  oil  plants  in  each 
nome  (administrative  district). ^^ 

Oppression  of  laborers.  The  ordinary  tributes,  though  heavy, 
were  endurable;  but  the  natives  v^^ere  subject  to  many  other  taxes,  and 
were  required  to  perform  in  addition  a  variety  of  labors,  for  which 
they  received  no  pay,  including  the  erection  of  royal  buildings,  the 
entertainment  of  travelling  officials,  and  of  soldiers  quartered  upon 
them,  the  building  and  repair  of  dams  and  embankments  along  the 
Nile,  the  maintenance  and  extension  of  the  whole  irrigation  system, 
and  the  reclaiming  of  waste  lands.  The  capricious  and  arbitrary  en- 
forcement of  these  labors,  which  took  no  account  of  the  peasants' 
necessities,  proved  exceedingly  oppressive.  The  laborers  were  kept 
under  continual  watch;  day  and  night  custodians  from  the  mercenary 
class  guarded  the  crops  lest  the  peasant  take  something  for  himself 
before  the  king  had  had  his  share;  -^  and  while  the  aim  of  the 
administration  was  to  confine  the  whole  laboring  population  to  its 
endless  routine  of  toil,  the  growers  of  oil  plants  were  most  rigorously 

22  Royal  domains;  H.  Civ.  p.  570.  Peasants;  no.  177  f.  Restriction  on  their  move- 
ments; p.  576.  Their  judges;  Demetrius  of  Scepsis,  in  Athen.  xv.  53.  Tribute  (phoros); 
H.   Civ.  no.    176  (money);   Ditt.   Or.  55   (tenth  in  naturalia). 

2.3  The  Egyptian  land  system;  H.  Civ.  p.  590.  Land  in  gift;  no.  18  c.  Cleruchs;  no. 
183  f. ;  Tebt.  1.  nos.  32,  46,  79,  83,  85;  FayUm  Towns,  no.  11  f.  Royal  and  many  other 
documents  in  the  various  collections  of  papyri.  Royal  domains  and  cultivators;  H.  Civ. 
no.    186   f.     Oil  monopoly;    no.    179. 

24  There  were  taxes  on  cattle,  on  houses  and  lots,  and  other  property;  on  occupations 
and  sales.  Tithes  of  certain  produce  went  to  the  temples;  and  there  were  customs  dues  on 
goods  transferred  from  one  nome  to  another.  In  brief,  evervthing  was  taxed.  Task 
work;  Paris.  Pap.  no.  63;  Pctric  Pap.  I.  no.  22;  III.  no.  37;  Tebt.  I.  no.  5.  11.  lines  168  ff. 
Custody  of  crops;  Tebt.  I  27;  Hcbch  Pap.  no.  44.  In  fact  the  number  of  documents  for 
the  illustration  of  these  subjects  is  almost  endless. 


472  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

bound  to  the  soil.  If  they  neglected  their  work  to  the  extent  of  jour- 
neying to  another  nome,  they  might  be  arrested  and  forced  back  to 
their  wearisome  tasks. 

Decline  of  democracy.  In  fact  the  most  deplorable  feature  of 
life  in  the  Hellenistic  Orient  was  the  abject  condition  of  the  laborers. 
The  voiceless  multitude  meekly  accepted  the  terms  of  rent,  purchase, 
and  sale  imposed  upon  them  by  those  in  authority.  Though  not 
precisely  serfs,  they  were  on  the  very  brink  of  serfdom.  In  Europe, 
with  rare  exceptions,  the  native  laborers  of  a  community,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  slaves,  were  free,  and  in  democracies  enjoyed  the 
right  to  vote.  A  characteristic  feature  of  the  change  from  the  fourth 
century  to  the  Hellenistic  age,  however,  was  the  decline  of  the  de- 
mocracy and  of  the  laboring  class.  The  masses  were  adversely  af- 
fected by  the  economic  developments  attending  the  conquest  of  the 
Orient.  Great  wealth  in  land  and  money  fell  into  the  hands  of 
Alexander's  officers  and  of  the  aids  and  favorites  of  his  successors, 
or  of  adventurers  in  business,  while  people  of  moderate  means  be- 
came fewer,  and  the  poverty  of  the  masses  increased.  In  every  con- 
siderable city  swarmed  the  proletarians,  who  could  find  no  adequate 
employment,  and  lived  on  the  edge  of  starvation.  As  a  class  they 
were  no  more  to  be  blamed  for  their  poverty  than  the  few  were  to  be 
praised  for  their  wealth.  If  left  to  themselves  they  could  but  die 
of  hunger.  In  the  interest  of  self-preservation  therefore  various 
cities,  not  simply  Rhodes,  Samos,  and  Carthage,  but  in  time  even 
Rome  found  it  necessary  to  supply  them  with  a  cheap  or  free  grain. 
In  both  Greece  and  Rome  reformers  attempted  the  economic  and  po- 
litical redemption  of  the  masses,  but  they  could  not  prevail  over 
the  opposition  of  tlie  rich.  At  the  opening  of  the  Christian  era  democ- 
racy had  almost  totally  vanished  from  the  civilized  world,  and  with 
it  the  thought  that  the  poor  might  as  a  class  be  educated  and  treated 
with  the  consideration  due  to  human  souls.  Three  and  a  half  centu- 
ries later  they  were  in  a  serfdom  whose  beginnings  had  been  borrowed 
from  the  Orient;  and  it  has  been  but  recently,  during  the  early 
centuries  of  modem  times,  that  they  have  regained  their  freedom.^^ 

25  Gifts  of  Alexander  and  his  successors;  Plut.  Alrx.  15;  Eum.  13;  Diod.  xviii.  50.  4;  xx. 
28.  3;  p.  462  above  (Egyptian  "  lands  in  gift").  The  luxuries  of  the  few  were  a  measure 
of  their  wealth;  cf.  H.  Civ.  nos.  233-5,  240-3.  State  aid  to  the  poor  in  Rhodes;  no.  23ft. 
In  Boeotia;  no.  237.  In  Samos  and  in  Carthage;  Strabo,  xvii.  3.  15.  Attempted  reforms 
of  Agis  and  Cleomenes  at  Sparta;  H.  Civ.  nos.  240-3.  At  Rome  under  the  Gracchi 
and  their  successors;   Greenidge,  History  of  Rome,  I. 


HELLENISTIC  STATES,  337-30  B.  C.  473 

General  decline  of  the  home  land.  The  Greek  home  land  suffered 
through  the  easterly  migration  of  her  most  ambitious  and  enter- 
prising sons,  which  left  the  peninsula  poorer  in  creative  energy  and 
intelligence.  Another  factor  that  afforded  a  powerful  impetus  to 
her  decline  was  the  eastward  shifting  of  commercial  centres.  From 
the  seventh  to  the  fourth  centuries  the  coast  of  Greece  washed  by 
the  Aegean  sea  belonged  to  the  heart  of  Hellas  from  which  extended 
trade  arteries  to  every  part  of  the  Mediterranean  world.  As  the 
Hellenes  expanded  over  Egypt  and  western  Asia,  however,  the  centre 
of  commerce  moved  after  them  from  Peiraeus  to  Rhodes  and  Alex- 
andria. The  Athenian  port  lost  nearly  all  its  life,  as  the  greater  part 
of  the  trade  left  to  the  vicinity  shifted  to  Corinth,  which  attained  to 
a  new  splendor  as  the  occasional  residence  of  the  Macedonian  kings. 
These  circumstances  made  it  the  largest,  wealthiest,  and  most  beauti- 
ful city  of  the  peninsula  till  its  destruction  at  the  hands  of  the 
Romans.  Not  least  effective  in  thinning  the  population  and  destroy- 
ing property  were  the  wars  between  city-states  or  federal  unions  or 
between  the  Macedonian  kings  and  the  Hellenes,  wars  not  less  fre- 
quent than  before  the  days  of  Philip  and  Alexander.  Doubtless, 
too,  the  continued  wasting  of  the  soil  and  the  spread  of  malaria 
tended  further  to  rob  the  inhabitants  of  food  and  to  sap  their  vitality. 
To  all  these  destructive  forces  we  must  add  the  rising  standard  of 
living,  the  love  of  comfort  and  luxury  which  induced  men  either  to 
remain  single,  or  if  they  married,  to  bring  up  few  if  any  children, 
with  the  result  that  the  number  and  the  size  of  families  rapidly  di- 
minished. Although  not  hopeless  at  the  time  of  the  Roman  subju- 
gation (146),  the  condition  of  the  peninsula  under  the  Romans  stead- 
ily deteriorated,  till,  early  in  the  Christian  era,  the  Hellenic  Strabo 
could  only  describe  the  home  land  of  freedom  and  science  in  terms 
of  desolation. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Holm,  III,  ch.  xxvii,  IV,  chs.  i-v,  ix-xiii,  xv-xix,  xxiv-xxix;  Beloch,  III,  1, 
chs.  vii,  viii,  x;  Baumgarten,  Wagner  &  Poland,  Hellenistische-Romische  Kuliur 
(Teubner,  1913),  3-72;  Cavaignac,  III,  96-233;  Colin,  Rom  et  la  Grece; 
Dubois,  Les  Ligues  etolienne  et  achaenne  (Paris,  1885);  Ferguson,  Greek  Im- 
perialism, Hellenistic  Athens  (Macmillan,  1911);  Freeman,  History  of  Federal 
Government;  Greenidge,  Greek  Const.  Hist.,  ch.  vii;  Mahaffy,  Greek  Life  and 
Thought   from   the  Death  of  Alexander  to   the  Roman   Conquest    (Macmillan, 


474 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


1887)  ;  Meyer,  "  Alexander  der  Grosse  und  die  absolute  Monarchic"  in  Klcine 
Schriftcn;  Mitteis-Wilcken,  Grundzuge  und  Chrestoiuartine  dcr  Papyruskunde ; 
Phillipson,  International  Law  and  Custom  of  Ancient  Greece  and  Rome;  Raedcr, 
L'Arbitrage  internationale  chez  des  Hellenes. 


PTOLEMY  ADELPHUS  AND  ARSINOE 


ACHAEAN  LEAGUE  COINS 


CHAPTER  XXIX 
HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  (I) 

337-30  B.  C. 

I.     City  Construction  and  Art  ^ 

City  construction.  Priene.  The  Hellenistic  age  with  its  con- 
quests and  colonization  was  a  period  of  city  construction.  So  far  as 
the  nature  of  the  surface  permitted,  the  builders  applied  the  principle 
of  straight  streets  crossing  each  other  at  right  angles.  The  require- 
ments of  defence,  however,  still  left  the  ways  narrow  and  reduced  the 
public  squares  to  the  smallest  areas.  The  recent  excavation  of 
Priene,  a  town  of  about  4,000  inhabitants,  has  given  us  a  clearer  idea 
of  this  period  than  we  could  have  been  able  to  acquire  in  any  other 
way.  It  stands  on  a  height  with  steep  descents  on  every  side,  so  that 
the  need  of  fortification  was  minimized.  The  circuit  wall  of  un- 
known height  is  two  meters  in  thickness,  and  is  pierced  by  three  gates 
covered  with  round  arches.  Arriving  from  the  port,  we  pass  through 
the  cemetery  and  into  the  western  gate,  thence  along  a  narrow  street 
to  the  Provision  Market,  where  the  small  dealers  retailed  bread,  meat, 
and  other  victuals.  Adjoining  it  is  the  Great  Market,  the  centre  of 
public  life.  In  the  middle  is  a  large  altar,  and  along  the  border  on 
all  four  sides  runs  a  colonnade,  which  fronts  a  succession  of  stores, 
temples,  and  other  buildings  that  surround  the  market.  The  north 
side  is  occupied  by  a  Sacred  Portico,  in  which  the  people  held  festival 
and  sat  on  holidays  at  banquets  provided  at  the  city's  expense. 
Other  public  buildings  are  the  Assembly  Hall,  with  a  seating  capacity 
of  about  500,  serving  for  the  meetings  of  citizens  and  of  the  council, 
the  theatre,  and  various  temples.  That  of  Athena,  the  gift  of  Alex- 
ander, was  elegant  and  artistic,  the  pride  of  the  city.     As  a  Greek 

1  The  sources  for  art  are  first  of  all  the  art  objects  themselves  in  the  various  museums 
of  the  world,  and  secondarily  pictures.  Illustrations  of  most  of  the  art  objects  mentioned 
will  be  found  in  the  text.  For  modern  art  works  and  for  reports  of  excavations,  see  foot- 
notes and  the  bibliography  at  the  close  of  the  chapter.  For  ancient  writings  on  art,  see 
p.    141   n.    10. 

47.S 


■■■"  ■ 

^J^^:     ^1 

-^w:^ 

THE  DYIXG  GAUL 
(Capitoline  Museum,  Rome) 


ALTAR  OF  ZEUS  AT  PERGAMUM 
(Berlin  Museum) 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  477 

community  the  Prienians  could  not  live  without  a  stadium  and  a 
gymnasium.  ^ 

Public  life.  Although  they  drew  their  chief  subsistence  from 
their  farms  near  by,  they  also  manufactured  a  few  wares  which  they 
shipped  abroad  through  their  port.  Public  life  was  wholesome. 
Candidates  for  office  sought  the  votes  of  their  fellow  citizens;  and  as 
magistrates  they  devoted  a  share  of  their  private  income  to  the  im- 
provement of  the  city  and  the  entertainment  of  the  people.  In 
return  the  citizens  granted  them  exemption  from  public  burdens,  front 
seats  at  the  theatre  and  festivals,  and  honorary  statues,  many  of  which 
were  set  up  in  the  Sacred  Portico.  The  people  were  industrious, 
intelligent,  moral,  and  happy.  Larger  cities  differed  chiefly  in  the 
proportionally  greater  attention  to  industry  and  commerce,  and  the 
increased  contrasts  between  the  few  rich  and  the  many  poor,  in  the 
splendor  of  public  buildings  and  of  the  homes  of  the  wealthy. 
Temples  showed  in  an  accentuated  degree  the  features  whose  begin- 
nings were  witnessed  by  the  second  half  of  the  fourth  century.  A 
remarkable  development  of  the  age  was  the  Great  Altar  of  Zeus  at 
Pergamum,  about  one  hundred  feet  square.  ^  The  construction  may  be 
studied  in  the  picture.  The  actual  altar  stood  on  the  top  of  this 
monument  in  the  centre  of  a  court  surrounded  by  an  Ionic  colonnade. 
The  frieze  is  described  below  among  the  sculptures.  Notable,  too, 
was  the  gigantic  light-house  at  Alexandria,  on  the  island  of  Pharos, 
which  gave  its  name  to  the  structure.  It  was  more  than  a  hundred 
meters  high.  The  summit  was  reached  within  by  a  ramp  surround- 
ing the  open  shaft  in  which  an  elevator  conveyed  the  material  for 
the  light.* 

"Water  supply  and  sanitation.  In  choosing  a  site  for  a  city 
regard  was  had  to  the  water  supply  as  well  as  to  agricultural  and 
commercial  advantages.  For  example,  Priene  had  abundant  spring 
water  brought  into  the  city  in  large  earthen  pipes,  filtered,  and  dis- 
tributed to  the  houses  through  smaller  pipes.  The  larger  aqueducts 
of  more  populous  cities  were  subterranean  channels  -lined  with  stone 
and  cement.  In  this  period  increased  attention  was  paid  to  sanita- 
tion. Whereas  at  Smyrna,  new-built,  after  lying  for  centuries  in 
ruins,  the  refuse  from  the  houses  lay  in  the  streets  to  be  washed  about 

2  Wiegand  and  Schrader,   Priene  (Berlin,   1904);   Haverfield,  Ancient  T own-Planning,  ch. 
iv;   Bel.   Rihii.   Ktilt.    157  f.,   168-72,    199-211. 

3  Devised   by  Hippodamus  of   Miletus,   p.    266,   280. 

4  He/.   Rom.  Kult.    159,   178  ff. 


478  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

over  the  pavement  by  rains,  Ephesus  seems  to  have  been  well  pro- 
vided with  sewers;  and  in  some  if  not  in  all  cities  there  were  of- 
ficials who  had  charge  of  sanitation ;  and  in  some  dwellings  at  Priene 
have  been  found  sanitary  arrangements  comparable  with  those  of 
today. ^ 

Family  life.  Family  life  still  secluded  itself  from  the  public 
gaze.  A  dwelling  at  Priene  presented  to  the  street  a  bare  window- 
less  wall,  pierced  at  one  end  by  a  single  door.  In  visiting  the  home 
of  an  average  citizen  we  pass  through  this  door  into  a  waiting  room, 
and  thence  into  an  open  court  with  cemented  floor.  This  space, 
whence  the  family  received  their  air  and  light,  is  surrounded  by 
rooms.  The  one  at  the  back,  adorned  with  two  cclumns,  is  the  living 
room  of  the  house.  Here  stands  the  altar;  here  guests  were  received, 
and  here  the  family  usually  gathered  at  meals.  In  a  house  so 
sumptuous  as  to  have  a  second  story,  the  upper  floor  was  occupied 
by  the  women.  The  houses  of  the  wealthy,  imitating  the  royal  pal- 
aces, developed  a  system  of  two  courts,  each  surrounded  by  a  colon- 
nade, and  usually  adorned  with  a  fountain  and  flowers.  In  the 
inner  court  centred  the  private  life  of  the  family  and  the  industrial 
activities  of  the  household.  About  it  were  the  rooms  in  which  the 
female  slaves  lived  and  plied  their  labors,  such  as  spinning,  weaving, 
grinding  grain,  and  baking.  Here,  too,  was  the  sleeping  room  of  the 
parents,  another  for  the  daughters,  and  one  or  more  dining  rooms. 
The  outer  or  front  court,  open  as  it  was  to  guests,  was  only  richer 
and  more  stately.  The  building  throughout  was  beautified  with 
statues,  mural  paintings  and  colored  marbles,  with  finely  woven 
and  embroidered  tapestries,  and  some  of  the  floors  with  mosaics. 
The  furniture  was  of  bronze,  ivory,  and  rare  imported  woods.  The 
construction  and  furnishing  of  such  a  home  drew  upon  the  resources 
of  the  whole  civilized  world,  and  was  only  rendered  possible  by  an 
extensive  commerce  on  sea  and  land." 

Sculptures  of  the  age.  Among  the  extant  sculptures  of  the  age 
are  reliefs  which  decorated  public  buildings.  Perhaps  the  most  strik- 
ing representatives  of  this  class  are  to  be  found  at  Pergamum.  This 
city,  the  seat  of  Attalus  and  his  dynasty,  is  the  only  Hellenistic  capital 
thus  far  thoroughly  excavated.     So  much  architecture  and  sculpture 

5  City  sanitation;  Miiller,  Griech.  Privataltcrtiimer,  48  f.  Smyrna;  Strabo  xiv.  1.  37. 
Ephesus;  xiv.  1.  21.  .\  Board  of  Health-  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  50.  Sanitation  in  houses  al 
Priene;   Wiegand  and  Schrader,  Priene,  DA. 

•i  Delos  BCH.  VIII.  473-96;  Daremberg  and  Saglio,  art.  "  Domus  "  ;  Ferguson,  Hel.  Atlu 
71;    Beloch,   Cricch.   Gesch.   III.   1.   416   f;    Muller,   Griech.   Privatalt,   41-5,   66-71. 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  479 

have  been  found  there,  so  well  are  we  acquainted  with  the  material 
civilization  of  the  place,  that  it  must  be  taken  as  the  starting  point  for 
a  study  of  the  royal  capitals  of  the  age.  Attalus  I,  241-197,  secured 
the  peace  of  his  kingdom  by  an  overwhelming  defeat  of  the  Galatians. 
A  memorial  of  this  deed  was  the  frieze  which  adorned  the  exterior 
of  the  monument  on  which  stood  the  Great  Altar  of  Zeus.  It  repre- 
sents the  combat  of  Gods  and  Giants  as  a  symbol  of  the  struggle  of 
civilization  against  barbarism.  As  the  frieze  is  above  seven  feet  in 
height,  the  colossal  figures  give  a  physical  impression  of  the  super- 
human. To  the  Pergamenes  it  was  a  historical  picture  of  living 
national  interest.  In  facial  expression  and  in  bodily  attitude,  in  the 
animation  of  the  gods  and  the  fury  of  the  giants,  in  tenseness  of 
muscle  and  heat  of  action  we  see  the  spirit  of  Scopas  highly  accentu- 
ated. The  whole  scene  may  well  be  described  as  a  mass  of  supermen 
convulsively  struggling.  A  comparison  with  the  frieze  of  the 
Parthenon,  or  even  the  frieze  of  the  Mausoleum,  shows  a  marked 
degeneration  of  taste.  Despite  its  imposing  magnificence  this  relief 
offends  by  its  exaggerations  and  by  the  sacrifice  of  naturalness  and 
simplicity  to  the  desire  for  effect. 

The  "  Dying  Gaul."  A  more  realistic  memorial  of  the  same  vic- 
tory was  a  group  of  bronze  figures  representing  a  battle  between 
Greeks  and  Galatians.  Although  all  the  originals  have  been  lost, 
there  remain  marble  copies  of  several  figures.  Among  the  latter  is  the 
"  Dying  Gaul  "  in  the  Capitoline  Museum  at  Rome.^  It  has  the 
advantage  of  being  nearly  contemporary  with  the  original  and  of  being 
itself  the  product  of  an  Anatolian  artist,  who  either  belonged  to  the 
Pergamene  school  or  worked  under  its  influence.  Strongly  realistic, 
it  represents  both  the  ethnic  and  the  individual  peculiarities  of  the 
warrior;  the  coarse  hair  pushed  straight  up  from  the  forehead,  the 
mustache,  the  necklace,  the  hardened  skin,  the  fortitude  that  overcomes 
the  death  pain  of  the  ugly  stab  in  his  side.  We  admire  the  perfect 
anatomy,  made  possible  by  the  medical  science  *  of  the  age  and  in 
brief  the  fidelity  to  nature  displayed  by  every  part  of  the  work. 

In  the  consideration  of  the  Pergamene  sculptures  above  offered  the 
characteristics  of  the  age  have  been  indicated.  Although  it  is  still 
possible  here  and  there  to  find  examples  of  restrained  and  dignified 
sculptures,  the  general  features  depart  widely  from  the  classical 
standard.     The  tendencies  which  we  discovered  in  their  infancy  in 

7  A  marble  copy  of  another  work  of  the  same  group  is  the  "  Gaul  and  his  Wife." 

8  P.   495. 


480  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  fourth  century  have  become  more  pronounced.  Self-restraint 
has  waned  and  the  emotions  have  grown  strong  even  to  exaggeration. 
In  portrait  sculpture  an  intense  realism  expresses  and  overemphasizes 
individual  traits  and  even  defects.  The  posture  of  the  human  form 
becomes  theatrical,  sometimes  violent.  Groupings,  draperies,  and 
the  general  composition  assume  complex  and  elaborate  forms. 

Patrons  of  art.  The  great  patrons  of  art  were  the  Hellenistic 
kings  who  ruled  the  divided  empire  of  Alexander.  While  preserving 
a  degree  of  Hellenic  taste,  they  demanded  an  art  commensurate 
with  their  own  wealth  and  splendor  —  palaces,  city  halls,  theatres, 
and  many  other  forms  of  architecture  with  decorations  of  fitting  in- 
tricacy and  elaboration.  To  these  demands  the  artists  responded  with 
a  technique  that  was  equal  to  every  emergency. 

Aphrodite  of  Melos.  Maid  of  Antium.  A  statue  which  is  still 
widely  regarded  as  the  most  beautiful  of  the  age  is  the  Aphrodite  of 
Melos.  We  do  not  know  the  sculptor  or  the  reason  for  the  peculiar 
attitude.  Perhaps  the  right  hand  held  the  drapery.  The  left  foot 
is  advanced  and  rests  on  slightly  elevated  ground.  The  statue  is 
made  of  two  pieces  of  marble,  the  unclad  part  of  finer  quality  than 
the  other.  We  see,  too,  in  the  style  a  combination  of  the  heavy 
Pheidian  drapery  with  a  Praxitelean  head.  Such  eclecticism  was 
common  in  the  age,  but  seldom  has  it  been  effected  with  equal  skill. 
Grace  and  dignity  are  more  nearly  balanced  than  is  usual  in  this 
period.  Another  woman  figure  of  the  age,  composed  of  two  kinds 
of  marble,  is  the  so-called  Maid  of  Antium.  It  was  found  in  Nero's 
villa  at  Antium,  whence  it  was  removed  in  1909  to  the  Museum  of 
the  Terme  at  Rome.  The  head  and  right  shoulder  are  of  pure  white, 
the  rest  of  the  inferior  material.  She  may  be  the  daughter,  or  possibly 
the  servant,  of  a  priest  of  Apollo.  On  a  tray  she  carries  the  imple- 
ments of  divination,  and  seems  to  be  in  the  act  of  making  a  choice  of 
the  objects  in  an  oracular  response  to  an  inquiry.  The  strong  athletic 
form,  the  masculine  proportions,  and  the  sturdy  stride  befit  an  attend- 
ant upon  Apollo  far  more  than  the  average  girl.  Though  some  have 
assigned  it  to  the  fifth  century  and  others  to  Praxiteles,  it  seems  rather 
to  be  Hellenistic;  and  in  that  case  it  must  be  classed  among  the  most 
distinguished  statues  of  the  age.  The  texture  of  the  gown  is  unique; 
the  attitude  is  natural;  and  the  features  and  facial  expression  are 
charming.     Amid  the  thousands  of  sculptures  that  people  the  museums 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  481 

of  Rome  it  is  a  figure  that  impresses  the  visitor  with  its  rare  per- 
sonality. 

Nike  of  Samothrace.  Another  female  statue  deserving  of  men- 
tion is  the  Nike  of  Samothrace,  which  commemorates  the  naval  vic- 
tory of  Demetrius  Poliorcctes  ("  Stormer  of  Cities ")  gained  off 
Cyprus  in  306.  The  monument  was  originally  placed  on  a  rocky 
height  of  Samothrace,  whence  it  has  been  removed  to  the  Louvre.  The 
goddess  stands  erect  on  the  prow  of  a  ship,  her  wings  expanded,  her 
garments  clinging  in  magnificent  masses  about  her  gigantic  form  and 
streaming  wildly  behind  her,  blown  by  the  onrush  of  the  vessel.  The 
head  and  arms  are  lost,  but  from  her  image  on  a  coin  we  learn  that 
she  held  to  her  lips  a  trumpet,  through  which  she  heralded  the  glori- 
ous deed  of  her  fosterling.  It  is  the  most  splendid  Victory  created  by 
the  ancient  world. 

The  Laocoon.  The  Laocoon  is  a  product  of  the  Rhodian  school 
of  sculptors,  which  was  clearly  akin  to  that  of  Pergamum.  This 
group  belongs  to  the  first  century  B.  c.  and  is  here  offered  as  an  ex- 
ample of  violent  sensationalism.  Laocoon  and  his  two  sons  are  being 
crushed  in  the  folds  of  two  enormous  snakes.  The  intricate  group 
thus  formed  is  wrought  with  great  technical  skill.  The  violent  death 
agonies  of  the  three  persons,  expressed  in  the  convulsions  of  facial 
and  bodily  muscles,  are  amazingly  realistic.  The  anatomy  is  perfect 
with  one  exception :  for  unknown  reasons  the  boys  are  given  the  forms 
of  grown  men.  The  chief  fault  lies  in  the  choice  of  agony  as  a  subject 
for  sculptural  treatment.  The  face  of  the  father,  too,  should  express 
not  pain  alone  but  also  horror  and  physical  effort.  The  snakes  are 
wholly  untrue  to  nature:  they  are  not  large  enough  to  crush  a  man; 
and  serpents  which  depend  upon  choking  their  victims  do  not  bite. 
Despite  these  and  other  faults,  glaring  indeed  when  measured  by 
Pheidian  and  Praxitelean  standards,  the  group  is  a  work  of  positive 
merit;  else  it  would  not  have  excited  the  admiration  of  Renaissance 
artists.^  Life  at  Rhodes  was  commercial  like  that  of  today;  and  a 
prominent  aim  of  art,  as  in  our  own  time,  was  to  display  the  resources 
of  wealth  and  the  mighty  ambition  of  a  trading  people  in  the  pro- 

9  The  admiration  of  early  art  lovers  for  this  work  is  chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  they 
were  unacquainted  with  the  best  Hellenic  sculpture,  more  recently  discovered.  It  was 
this  motive,  together  with  Vergil's  story  of  the  death  of  Laocoon  (Aeneid  ii.  212-24)  and 
Pliny's  favorable  'jommen',  (N.  H.  xxxvi.  37  f.)  that  induced  the  German  poet  Lessing  to 
write  his  famous  Laokoon,  which  deals  with  the  principles  of  sculpture  as  compared  with 
those  of  poetry. 


482  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

duction  of  the  intricate,  the  ornate,  and  the  stupendous.  Thus  the 
"  Colossus  of  Rhodes  "  finds  its  counterpart  in  our  "  Liberty  enlight- 
ening the  World,"  an  appropriate  gift  to  the  United  States. 

Children  in  art.  Perhaps  the  most  pleasing  branch  of  Hellenistic 
art  comprises  representations  of  real  life  designated  genre.  For  the 
first  time  in  history  an  interest  began  to  be  felt  in  children.  Their 
physique  was  now  carefully  observed;  their  facial  expressions  and 
their  playful  attitudes  were  naturally  reproduced.  We  cannot  doubt 
that  this  artistic  development  corresponded  to  a  real  change  in  social 
life.  As  the  centre  of  interest  shifted  from  politics  to  the  home,  and  a 
powerful  impetus  came  from  various  directions  to  humanism,  it  was 
inevitable  that  children  should  attract  their  share  of  attention.  At 
the  same  time  men  sought  a  refuge  from  the  artiiiciality  of  the  city 
in  the  innocence  and  the  simplicity  of  rural  life  and  of  childhood. 
Thus  it  was  in  the  spirit  of  the  Idylls  of  Theocritus  ^"  that  the 
sculptor  created  in  relief  scenes  of  rustic  simplicity  or  statues  of 
peasants  and  fisherfolk  as  well  as  of  children. 

Deification  of  cities.  A  contrast  to  these  light  subjects  is  the  deifi- 
cation of  cities.  Throughout  Greek  history  impersonation  had  been 
common,  and  city-states  had  generally  been  represented  by  their  tute- 
lary deities.  In  the  third  century  Eutychides,  a  pupil  of  Lysippus, 
wrought  for  the  people  of  Antioch  a  gilded  bronze  statue  of  the  For- 
tune (Tyche)  of  their  city.  The  deity  was  easily  identified  with 
Antioch  itself.  She  is  seated  on  a  rock,  as  was  the  city;  and  the 
river  flowing  at  her  feet  is  represented  by  a  swimming  youth.  The 
bunch  of  grain  stalks  in  her  hand  symbolizes  the  fertility  of  the  river 
valley,  while  the  mural  crown,  the  first  known  in  art,  signifies  the 
walls  of  defence.  The  statue  became  an  object  of  worship,  and  the 
idea  was  gradually  extended  to  other  cities  and  to  Rome. 

Painting  in  the  Hellenistic  age.  The  Hellenistic  age  was  as 
productive  of  painting  as  of  every  other  form  of  art,  but  owing  to  the 
perishable  material  our  knowledge  of  it  is  imperfect.  The  most 
famous  painter  of  the  age  was  Apelles  of  Cos,  a  man  of  marvellous 
industry  and  a  great  master  of  technique.  He  used  but  four  colors, 
black,  white,  red,  and  yellow;  he  alone  had  the  art  of  covering  the 
finished  painting  with  a  black  glaze  that  imj)roved  the  work  by  toning 
down  the  colors,  while  protecting  it  from  dampness.     His  painting  of 

10  p.  497. 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  483 

"  Aphrodite  rising  l"rom  the  Sea  "  was  especially  celebrated.  Brought 
to  Rome  with  other  booty  from  Hellas,  it  found  a  place  in  the  temple 
of  the  deitied  Julius  Caesar. 

We  are  fortunate  in  having  a  number  of  portraits  on  panels  that 
had  covered  the  faces  of  Greek  and  Jewish  mummies  in  Egypt.  Al- 
though belonging  to  the  early  Christian  era,  they  well  illustrate  the 
work  of  the  same  kind  in  the  Hellenistic  period.  The  artists  were 
without  distinction;  and  yet  the  portraits  are  remarkably  lifelike,  and 
the  colors  are  still  bright.  The  wall  paintings  of  Pompeii  are  also 
but  a  continuation  of  the  house  decorations  of  the  Hellenistic  age. 
They  were  hastily  wrought  by  mechanics,  yet  many  of  the  figures  and 
groups  are  admirable.  Doubtless  the  ultimate  originals  of  many 
were  the  famous  works  of  Hellenic  masters.  Of  such  lineage  was 
the  "  Medea  "  meditating  on  the  murder  of  her  sons.^^  In  a  fierce 
struggle  of  soul  the  mother  instinct  is  overcome  by  rage  against  her 
unfaithful  husband. 

Mosaics.  An  art  new  to  the  Greeks  of  this  age,  learned  through 
contact  with  the  Orient,  was  mosaic-making.  It  could  thrive  nowhere 
but  amid  an  abundance  of  stones  of  various  colors;  and  as  the  work 
was  exceedingly  slow  and  painstaking,  it  could  be  carried  on  only 
where  labor  was  cheap.  These  conditions  were  met  in  Egypt;  and 
Alexandria  was  the  seat  of  manufacture  of  many  mosaics  now  found 
in  Greek  and  Roman  lands.  The  pattern  was  either  a  piece  of  tap- 
estry or  a  picture.  For  example,  the  original  of  the  "  Battle  of  Issus," 
found  in  a  private  house  at  Pompeii,  was  a  painting  of  that  conflict 
by  Apelles  or  other  great  master.  Darius,  already  beaten,  is  in  flight. 
In  his  fear  he  drives  his  chariot  wheels  over  the  dead  and  dying;  but 
kinglike  still,  he  turns  about  to  order  succor  to  a  fallen  noble. 
Farther  to  our  left  the  figure  of  Alexander,  mounted  on  Bucephalus, 
stands  out  distinctly  as  he  charges  in  pursuit.  It  is  remarkable  tliat 
with  scarcely  more  than  two  dozen  men  and  horses  the  artist  has  cre- 
ated the  effect  of  a  great  battle.  As  we  gaze  upon  the  picture,  we 
see  the  melee  of  combatants  in  deadly  strife;  we  seem  to  hear  the 
groans  of  the  dying,  the  clash  of  lances,  the  clamor  of  struggling 
horsemen.  Undoubtedly  the  original  was  among  the  great  historical 
paintings  of  the  ancient  world. 

11  The  artist  of  the  original  was  probably  Timomachus  of  Byzantium,  aoout  150  B.  C, 
who  was  famous  for  his  paintings  of  characters  from  the  drama.  Generally  in  the  repeated 
copying  of  copies  great  changes  must  have  been  introduced,  and  the  art  must  therefore 
have  suffered  deterioration. 


484 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


ADDITIONAL  READING 

Baumgarten,  Wagner  and  Poland,  Hel.  Rom.  Kult.,  140-215;  Beloch,  III, 
chs.  x-xii,  xiv;  Ferguson,  Hellenistic  Athens;  Fowler  and  Wheeler,  Greek 
Archaeology,  158-192;  226-292;  Gardner,  Greek  Sculpture;  Haverfield,  An- 
cient Town  Planning;  Holm,  III,  ch.  xxix,  IV,  chs.  xiv,  xx-xxiv;  Mahaffey, 
Greek  Life  and  Thought;  Stobart,  ch.  vi  and  Epilogue;  Weller,  Athens  and  its 
Monuments. 


\... 


DARIUS  III  DEFEATED  BV  ALEXANDER  IN  THE  BATTLE  OF  ISSUS 
(Pompeian  Mosaic  in  the  Naples  Museum) 


EPICURUS 
(CapitoHne  Museum,  Rome) 

CHAPTER  XXX 
HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  (II) 

I.     Philosophy 


Philosophic  change.  The  Cynics.  It  was  but  natural  that  the 
revolution  in  Hellenic  government  and  society  since  the  fourth  century 
should  be  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  change  in  philosophy.  All 
philosophic  thought  of  the  classic  age  had  rested  on  two  principles: 
first,  the  complete  trust  reposed  in  abstract  thinking  for  the  discovery 
of  truth  and,  second,  the  perfect  correspondence  assumed  between  the 
inner  man  and  the  world  without.  This  correspondence  was  sup- 
ported by  a  religion  which  peopled  nature  with  souls  like  those  of 
men.  It  was  partly  this  relation  between  the  world  and  man  which 
led  the  philosophers  to  believe  that  by  mere  thinking  they  could  dis- 
cover the  principles  of  nature,  and  partly  the  circumstance  that  philo- 
sophic thought  was  as  yet  in  its  infancy  with  its  limitations  unknown 
and  the  value  of  its  products  untested.  With  the  breaking  down  of 
the  city-state  and  of  traditional  religion  and  the  concomitant  growth  of 

485 


486  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

individualism  and  humanism,  philosophy,  abandoning  her  original 
foundation,  attempted  to  lay  a  new  basis  in  the  changed  conditions 
of  life.  The  ground  had  been  prepared  by  Antisthenes  of  Athens,  a 
disciple  of  Socrates,  and  an  older  contemporary  of  Plato.  From  his 
teaching  in  the  gymnasium  of  the  Cynosarges  his  school  was  called 
Cynic.  In  his  doctrine  virtue  is  the  only  good,  vice  the  sole  evil. 
Wealth,  social  position,  honor,  and  country  are  nothing.  A  tattered 
mantle,  a  piece  of  barley  bread  and  water  are  all  that  a  man  needs. 
We  should  renounce  every  bodily  pleasure  and  comfort  for  the  spiritual 
contentment  derived  from  the  exercise  of  virtue.  Through  the  con- 
tempt of  this  school  for  convention,  for  nearly  everything  mankind 
holds  dear,  the  word  cynic  has  degenerated  to  its  present  meaning.  It 
is  a  strange  thing  that  while  the  city-state  was  still  strong,  Antis- 
thenes foreshadowed  by  a  century  or  more  those  systems  of  thought 
that  were  to  be  founded  upon  the  ashes  of  Hellenism. 

The  Stoics  —  Zenon,  founder  of  the  school.  In  the  Hellenistic 
age,  while  the  members  of  the  Cynic  school  degenerated  to  boorish  and 
brutal  tramp  philosophers,  its  better  elements  were  adopted  by  the 
Stoics.  The  founder  of  the  school  was  Zenon,  a  Semite  of  Cyprus, 
who  had  come  to  Athens  (311).  There  for  a  time  he  studied  with 
the  Cynics,  but  ten  years  later  he  began  to  teach  independently  in  the 
Painted  Porch  —  Stoa  Poikile  —  which  gave  its  name  to  his  school. 
His  Semitic  nationality  shows  itself,  not  in  the  content  of  his  teaching, 
which  is  Hellenic,  but  in  its  utterance.  Stoicism  is  less  rational,  more 
dogmatic,  than  any  previous  philosophy.  Zenon's  object  was  the 
moulding  of  man's  character  to  meet  the  difficulties  of  the  world,  and 
regardless  of  consistency  he  presented  the  doctrines  .suited  to  this  end, 
implanting  them  in  the  minds  of  others  less  by  reason  than  as  the  utter- 
ance of  a  prophet.  It  seemed  to  him,  amid  the  wreck  of  religious 
and  moral  ideas  formerly  sustained  by  the  city-state,  that  mankind 
needed  a  higher  degree  of  individual  self-sufficiency.  To  reach  this 
end  it  is  necessary,  he  taught,  to  train  the  will  into  conformity  with 
nature,  to  desire  only  those  things  that  are  certain  of  realization  inde- 
pendently of  ourselves.  In  order  to  prove  that  this  central  doctrine 
is  rational  and  that  it  will  assure  happiness  Zenon  developed  a  whole 
system  of  philosophy.  It  consists  of  three  branches,  IvOgic,  Physics, 
and  Ethics.  Logic  includes  a  theory  of  knowledge.  While  the  scep- 
tics of  his  age  were  denying  the  possibility  of  knowing,  Zenon  insisted 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  487 

that  we  could  accept  as  the  truth  all  "  grasping  impressions,"  ^  the 
sense  perceptions  that  come  to  us  with  irresistible  strength.  Whereas 
to  the  acute  thinker  this  dictum  was  childish  folly,  it  sufficed  for  a 
common-sense  philosophy.  Logic  included  also  everything  connected 
with  the  expression  of  thought  and  feeling,  from  grammar  to  rlictoric 
and  music,  as  well  as  the  forms  of  reasoning.  In  this  department  the 
Stoics  contributed  little  to  existing  knowledge.  In  TMiysics,  the  study 
of  nature,  their  most  startling  dogma  is  that  everything  is  material, 
even  God  and  the  human  soul.  The  qualities  of  objects,  emotions, 
virtues,  and  vices  are  all  corporeal.-  In  fact  the  purely  practical 
object  of  his  system  seemed  to  him  to  demand  that  it  be  grounded 
upon  ordinary  experience  which  has  to  do  primarily  with  material 
things.  It  is  our  common  experience,  too,  that  matter  can,  not  move 
itself  or  take  on  living  forms;  nothing  but  a  soul  can  bririg  about 
such  changes.  The  world,  therefore,  has  a  soul;  this  is  God,  the 
reason,  and  motive  power  of  the  universe.^  He  is  a  Providence  who 
in  loving  care  watches  over  the  world  and  every  part  of  it,  who  main- 
tains it  in  physical  and  moral,  perfection.'*  Everything  in  nature 
therefore  is  rational  and  good.  Thus  from  Physics  we  pass  imper- 
ceptibly to  Ethics.  The  soul  of  man  is  a  part  of  the  divine  soul,  and 
a  virtuous  life  is  conformity  to  nature.  Everything  that  exists  is 
advantageous  to  man,  even  sickness,  noxious  animals,  earthquakes 
and  the  like;  they  are  intended  for  our  education.  Thus  we  are 
gradually  led  back  to  the  central  idea  of  Stoicism  that  happiness,  the 
supreme  good,  is  reached  by  conforming  our  will  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
which  are  absolutely  rational  and  just. 

Stoicism,  a  religion.  Stress  should  be  placed  on  the  fact  that 
Stoicism  was  a  religion.  The  only  motive  to  right  conduct,  con- 
formity to  nature,  is  nothing  more  than  submission  to  the  will  of  God. 
It  is  a  pure  monotheism,  the  worship  of  one  Supreme  Being.  As  He 
wishes  only  well  for  us,  and  blesses  but  never  harms,  we,  who  are 
parts  of  Him,  have  no  reason  to  fear  Him,  but  should  only  revere  and 
love.^  For  this  worship  there  is  no  need  of  altars  or  temples  or 
images  or  even  of  prayer,*^  but  only  of  purity  in  life  and  thought. 

1  Sext.  Math.  v-'i.  244,  402,  426;  vii,  85;  Pyrrh.   ii.  4;   iii.  242;   Diog.   vii.   46. 

2  Plut.  Com.  Nor.  45,  49.  2;  Sen.  Sp.,  106.  4,   117.  2;   Clcaiithes.  quoted  by  Plut.  Sto.  Rep. 
7.  4,  p.   1034;  Stob.  Eel.  ii.   110. 

3  Sext.  Math.  ix.   75,   104:   Cicero,  N.  D.,  iii.  9,  22  (quoting  Zenon);   ii.  8.  21,  22,   iii.   10. 
25;  Diog.   142  f. 

4  See  the  Hymn  to  God  by  CIear.<hes  the  Stoic  in  Hicks,  Stoic  and  Epicurean,   14-16. 

5  Seneca.  Benef.   iv.   19.   1;   vii.   1.  7;  Ep.  95.  47,  49.     Seneca,   (frag.   120)   in  Lactant,  ii.   2. 
10;   in  Augustine,  Civ.  D.  vi.   10. 

CSen.  Ep.,  41.   1 ;  iV.  Q.  ii.  35  1. 


488  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

The  gods  of  popular  belief  with  their  foibles  and  vices  are  creatures 
of  the  imagination,  and  the  many  myths  are  worthy  only  of  con- 
tempt/ To  a  certain  extent,  however,  the  Stoics  compromised  with 
popular  faith.  Just  as  the  Christians  grant  the  existence  of  angels 
and  devils,  the  Stoics  assume  the  activity  of  superhuman  beings, 
called  gods,  but  subject  to  the  Supreme  Being.*^  In  like  manner, 
while  repeating  the  literal  content  of  myths,  the  Stoics  were  able  to 
save  them  for  a  useful  purpose  by  giving  them  an  allegorical  interpre- 
tation. In  this  activity  they  were  but  extending  an  invention  of 
earlier  philosophies.  Necessarily  their  interpretations  were  fantasti- 
cal. For  example,  Heracles  was  not  merely  a  strong  man,  but  a 
great  philosopher.  His  slaying  of  monsters  signifies  his  conquest  of 
human  vices;  and  when  he  leads  the  three-headed  dog  from  the  nether 
world  to"  earth's  surface,  he  is  merely  bringing  to  light  the  three  heads 
of  philosophy  —  Logic,  Physics,  and  Ethics.  The  effect  was  to 
purify  myth  of  all  immoralities,  and  to  preserve  the  traditional  religion 
while  endowing  it  with  a  wholly  new  meaning. 

Effects  of  Stoicism.  The  trend  of  Stoicism,  while  strengthening 
religious  faith,  was  to  make  the  individual  self-sufficient,  independent 
of  all  externals,  human  and  material,  and  to  give  him  an  absolute 
mastery  of  himself.  He  is  lord  of  his  own  life,  and  may  put  an  end 
to  it  when  he  judges  best.  Though  he  may  have  been  suddenly  con- 
verted to  Stoicism,  it  is  possible  to  grow  in  character  throughout  life; 
but  only  a  few  men  of  old,  such  as  Socrates,  have  attained  to  a 
perfection  of  virtue.  Society,  too,  exists,  and  the  individual  has  social 
instincts,  which  are  natural,  and  therefore  good.  All  are  members 
of  one  body;  all  are  parts  of  one  God,  bound  together  in  a  common 
sympathy.  In  striving  to  benefit  our  fellows  we  do  but  obey  a  law 
of  nature.  While  working  out  the  problem  of  virtue  many  Stoics 
were  driven  into  seclusion  or  lived  in  a  commonwealth  of  their  own 
imagining,  out  of  space  and  time,  where  no  sordid  ambitions  or 
passions  or  human  weaknesses  found  entrance,  but  all  dwelt  in  per- 
fect harmony  and  content.  Others  in  the  hope  of  impressing  their 
fellow  men  mingled  in  society  or  became  statesmen  and  rulers.  Their 
creed,  though  appealing  to  the  intellectuals  rather  than  the  mass,  has 
served  us  as  a  positive  force  in  the  history  of  thought  and  conduct. 
It  moulded  Roman  law;  it  contributed  to  the  humanism  of  Roman 

7  Seneca,  in  Lactant,  i.  16.  10. 

8  Phaedr,  Nat.  De.   Col.  3;   Cic,  N.  D.   i.   IS.  38;   ii.  24,   64;   Diog.   vii.    151;   Plut  Com. 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  489 

imperial  times;  at  various  ])oints  it  proved  akin  to  Christianity;  and 
much  of  it,  remaininjT  in  the  ethics  of  today,  still  makes  for  strength 
and  stability  of  character. 

Scepticism.  In  opposition  to  the  Stoics  there  were  powerful 
forces  of  disintegration.  There  were  Sceptics,  who  while  accepting 
appearances  as  such,  denied  the  possibility  of  real  knowledge.^  Thor- 
oughly typical  of  these  disturbed  conditions  is  the  work  of  Euhcmerus 
of  Messana.  In  a  book  entitled  Sacred  Inscription,  composed  about 
270,  he  preteruied  that  on  a  visit  to  a  distant  island  he  found  in  a 
temple  of  Zeus  an  ancient  inscription  which  detailed  the  origin  and 
doings  of  the  gods.  It  was  there  set  forth  that  Zeus  was  once  a  man 
who  had  distinguished  himself  as  king  and  conqueror  and  had  re- 
ceived divine  worship  in  reward  of  his  benefits,  and  similarly  that 
all  the  deities,  Apollo,  Aphrodite,  and  the  rest,  were  once  human 
beings  who  had  attained  to  fame  and  had  been  raised  to  the  rank  of 
gods  in  human  opinion,  whereas  in  fact  they  died  like  all  other  mor- 
tals and  are  no  more.^*^  While  undermining  what  remained  of  the 
traditional  faith,  this  book  supported  the  deification  of  kings,  which 
was  coming  into  vogue  at  that  time. 

Epicurus*  system  of  philosophy.  The  philosophic  system,  how- 
ever, which  is  rightly  set  down  as  the  opponent  of  Stoicism  was  that 
of  Epicurus  the  Samian,  founded  in  310.  His  school,  like  the  Stoa, 
was  materialistic;  he  accepted  substantially  the  atomic  theory  of 
Democritus.  Even  the  soul,  he  asserted,  is  material  and  dissolves  at 
death.  As  it  is  mortal,  we  have  nothing  to  fear  from  a  future  life.^^ 
Gods  exist  but  not  those  of  popular  faith.  The  real  deities  live  apart 
from  the  world  in  unalloyed  happiness,  caring  nothing  for  the  human 
race.^*  In  the  Epicurean  system,  as  among  the  Stoics,  the  whole 
superstructure  is  occupied  by  Ethics.  The  supreme  Good  is  appar- 
ently the  same  in  both  prtiilosophies,  happiness.  With  Epicurus, 
however,  happiness  is  freedom  from  pain,  or  from  fear,  which  is 
mental  suffering.^^  The  aim  was  not  hedonism  but  quietism. 
Pleasures  and  pains  differ  in  degrees;  and  in  making  choice  the  wise 
man  will  aim  to  avoid  the  severest  and  the  most  lasting  pains  and  to 
seek  the  highest  and  the  most  permanent  pleasures.  The  delights  of 
sensation  are  coarse  and  transitory,  those  of  mind  exalted  and  lasting. 

9  It  was  a  common  thing  to  deny  the  existence  of  the  gods. 

10  Diod.  V.  2.  4;   Calliinachus,  frag.  86. 

11  Epicurus,   in  Diog.   64,    124-7;   cf.   67;   Lucretius,   iii.    161   ff. ;   417-827. 

12  Epicurus,  in  Diog.,  77,  97,  139;   Cicero,  N.  D.  i.   i9.  51. 

13  Epicurus,  in  Diog.  128  f.,  137,  141;   Cicero.  De  Fin,  i.  9.  29;   Tusc.  v.  26.  73. 


490  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Hence  the  wise  man  will  choose  poverty  and  bodily  suffering  if  neces- 
sary to  secure  the  highest  pleasures.  The  intelligent  Epicurean  will 
be  as  virtuous  as  the  Stoic,  because  through  virtue  he  secures  the 
utmost  happiness.  The  founder  of  the  school  was  himself  an  admir- 
able character;  and  his  object  was  undoubtedly  to  benefit  his  fellow- 
men.  His  system,  though  it  has  many  points  of  likeness  to  Stoicism, 
has  been  condemned  by  the  tribunal  of  history.  The  reason  is  that 
it  is  essentially  selfish.  Individual  man  is  his  own  all-in-all.  Dif- 
ferent from  the  Stoic,  the  Epicurean  is  subject  to  no  spiritual  ideal 
toward  which  he  should  strive.  It  is  true  that  the  system  as  orig- 
inally taught  produced  a  few  eminently  worthy  characters;  but  its 
general  effect  has  been  demoralizing.  The  doctrine  of  happiness  was 
too  readily  perverted;  and  Epicureanism  became  synonymous  with  a 
love  of  eating  and  drinking,  with  gluttony  and  the  coarsest  pleasures. 

II.     Hellenistic  Science 

Progress  of  Science.  Fortunately  for  the  progress  of  science  the 
task  which  Aristotle  set  for  himself  was  not  only  the  collection  of  facts 
and  the  organization  of  knowledge  but  also  the  direction  of  his 
pupils  to  individual  fields  of  research.  His  work  continued  there- 
fore after  his  death.  An  added  impetus  to  the  study  of  geography  and 
astronomy,  of  plants  ^*  and  animals  —  to  discovery  and  invention  in 
general  was  given,  by  the  marches  of  Alexander.  Lastly  the  interest 
of  the  Ptolemies  in  art  and  science  devoted  a  goodly  share  of  Egyptian 
wealth  to  collections  and  institutions  for  the  furtherance  of  scholarly 
and  scientific  progress. 

Founding  of  libraries.  One  of  the  most  necessary  requisites  to 
this  work  was  the  founding  of  a  library.  Under  the  earlier  Ptolemies 
a  search  for  valuable  manuscripts  was  made  throughout  the  Hellenic 
world;  and  within  a  few  years  a  collection  was  made  of  500,000 
books  (volumes,  rolls),"  which  in  time  was  further  increased.  This 
was  the  royal  library,  the  greatest  in  the  ancient  world.  (A  smaller 
collection  was  made  in  the  temple  of  Serapis  —  Serapeion).  Calli- 
machus,  a  peripatetic  of  Cyrene  (310-240),  one  of  the  chief  librar- 
ians, compiled  a  catalogue,  said  to  have  filled  120  volumes,  compris- 

14  Bretzl,  Botanische  Forschungen  dcs  Alexanderzuges  (Leipzig,   1903). 

isTzetzes,  Scltol.  Plant,  p.  124  a  26  ff.,  quoted  by  Susemihl,  Gesch.  d.  Griech.  Litt.  I. 
342,  n.  76.  In  the  time  of  Caesar  the  number  had  increased  to  700,000;  Gall.  vi.  17.  3; 
Amm.  Marc.  xxii.  16.  3.  The  book  is  not  necessarily  a  complete  work,  but  a  roll,  which 
may  be  a  small  division  of  a  work.  Homer's  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  for  example,  contained 
twenty-four  books,  each.  It  is  to  be  noted,  too,  that  many  of  these  volumes  were  dupli- 
cates, different  manuscripts  or  editions,  for  instance  of  Homer  or  of  Hesiod;  Beloch. 
Griech,  Gesch.  III.  1.  434. 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  491 

ing  the  authors  and  their  works  in  order.  It  included,  too,  short 
biographies  of  the  authors  and  a  few  critical  data  for  the  valuation  of 
the  books.  Briefer  aids  to  the  choice  and  use  of  books  were  added 
by  various  scholars.  Other  Hellenistic  kings  established  libraries  in 
their  respective  capitals,  notably  in  Pergamum  and  Antioch,  none  of 
which  e(|uallcd  that  of  Alexandria. 

The  Museum  of  Alexandria.  The  Museum  of  Alexandria  was  an 
association  of  scholars  and  investigators,  like  the  Academy  and  the 
Lyceum,  formed  nominally  for  the  worship  of  the  Muses.  Their 
president  was  a  priest  appointed  by  the  king;  who  assigned  them 
quarters  in  his  palace,  a  large  hall,  in  which  they  took  their  meals  in 
common,  a  garden  with  seats  and  an  agreeable  place  for  walking.  The 
members  received  money  for  support  from  the  king's  treasury.^*' 

Critical  knowledge.  Members  of  this  association  and  other 
learned  men  in  the  Aristotelian  spirit  mapped  out  the  fields  of  knowl- 
edge, which  they  vigorously  cultivated  according  to  their  several  tastes. 
Under  Grammar,  nearly  equivalent  to  our  Philology,^'  may  be  in- 
cluded everything  relating  to  the  study  of  language  and  of  literature. 
Scholars,  of  whom  we  know  scarcely  more  than  the  names,  wrote 
histories  of  the  various  departments  of  literature,  as  the  drama,  poetry, 
and  philosophy,  and  biographies  of  famous  authors.  A  most  valuable 
service  was  the  comparison  and  criticism  of  manuscripts  with  a  view 
to  purifying  the  texts  of  errors  and  interpolations.  This  textual 
criticism  centered  in  the  poems  of  Homer.  It  had  begun  as  early  as 
the  fifth  century,  but  the  first  scholarly  edition  of  Homer  was  pre- 
pared by  Zcnodotus,  the  first  librarian  at  Alexandria  (285-260).  It 
put  the  text  substantially  in  the  form  in  which  we  read  it  today.  The 
division  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  into  books  was  made  either  by 
this  scholar  or  by  his  immediate  successors. ^^  In  his  judgment  these 
were  the  only  works  of  Homer,  whereas  others,  the  Separatists,  as- 
signed the  two  poems  to  different  authors.  The  texts  of  the  classic 
poets  and  many  prose  writers  were  similarly  treated ;  and  minute  com- 
mentaries on  the  language  and  the  subject  matter  were  prepared. 
Philology  included  also  technical  grammar,  which  had  a  relatively 
slow  growth,^^  prosody,  and  lexicons.     The  scientific  spirit  of  Alex- 

Ifi  Strabo  xvii.    1.   8;    Athen.   v.    36;   xi.    85;    Susemihl,    Gescli.    d.   griech.   Litt.    I.    7   f. 

17  Sex.    Empir.  Adv.   Gravim  i.   91. 

18  Zenodotus'  most  famous  successors  were  Callimachus,  mentioned  above,  Aristophanes 
of  Byzantium  (lived  262-180),  and  Aristarchus  of  Samothrace  (lived  217-145).  All  were 
noted  for  their  prodigious  industry  and  the  wide   range   of  their   productivity. 

19  The  study  of  grammar  began  with  the  sophists  (p.  279),  and  was  greatly  advanced  by 
the  Stoics,  who  invented  a  grammatical  terminology.    The  first  practical  grammar  of  the 


492 


HELLENIC  HISTORY 


andria  was  Aristotelian,  whereas  that  of  the  rival  Pergamene  school 
was  Stoic.  The  most  famous  master  at  Pergamum  was  Crates  from 
Cilicia,  contemporary  and  opponent  of  Aristarchus.  The  Stoic  love  of 
allegory,  prominent  in  this  school's  interpretation  of  the  poets,  blurred 
their  scientific  perception.  This  shortcoming  is  counterbalanced  by 
greater  attention  to  the  subject  matter  of  literature,  rather  than  to 
textual  criticism,  and  in  general  to  the  collection  and  organization  of 
facts. 

Euclid.     For  the  progress  of  physical  science  a  careful  foundation 
in  pure  mathematics  had  to  be  laid.     This  service  was  performed  by 


((C&) 


GREEK  STEAM  BOILER 

Euclid  (Eucleides)  of  Alexandria,  who  continued  the  mathematical 
studies  of  Plato  and  the  Academy.  His  chief  work,  named  Elements, 
still  extant,  is  a  treatise  on  geometry,  so  precise,  clear,  and  logical  that 
the  moderns  have  been  able  to  make  little  improvement  upon  it.  Any 
textbook  in  geometry  now  studied  in  our  schools,  is  Euclid's  Ele- 
ments, with  unimportant  modifications.^" 

Archimedes.  More  inventive  was  Archimedes  of  Syracuse  (287- 
212).  His  main  interest  was  in  pure  mathematics,  in  the  exact 
measurement  of  the  circle,  the  sphere,  the  cone,  conoids,  spheroids, 
and  the  cylinder.     In  some  of  his  operations  he  has  anticipated  the 

Greek   language,   however,    is  that   of  Dionysius  Thrax,    a   pupil   of  the    Alexandrian   Aris- 
tarchus.    It   is  the  foundation  of  all   grammars  to  the  present  day,   and   is  still  extant. 
20  Gow,  Short  History  of  Greek  Mathematics,  203,   208  f. 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE 


493 


principle  of  integral  calculus;  -'  and  in  his  applied  mathematics  he 
reveals  a  command  of  the  i)rinciples  of  higher  algebra.--  His  work 
in  applied  science,  though  in  his  own  judgment  subsidiary,  was  in  fact 
epoch-making.  He  discovered  a  means  of  computing  the  specific 
gravity  of  ol)jects  and  of  determining  the  centre  of  gravity  of  complex 
forms.  He  invented  engines  for  hurling  great  missiles  with  which  his 
fellow-citizens  long  kept  at  bay  the  besieging  Romans;  the  helix  for 
launching  great  ships  and  conveying  other  heavy  weights;  -^  a  pump- 
ing engine,^*  and  other  useful  machines.     In  the  application  of  power 


TOWER  OF  THE  WINDS 

Archimedes  and  other  ancient  mechanics  made  use  of  water,  com- 
pressed air  (pneumatics),  with  levers,  screws,  and  cogged  wheels.-" 
Some  inventions  added  to  the  conveniences  of  life,  such  as  water- 
mills,  automatic  door-openers,  washing-machines;  others  were  for  en- 
tertainment, including  fountains  adorned  with  automatically  moving 
figurines,  and  an  automatic  theatre  in  which  the  figures  performed 
their  parts  through  five  complicated  acts.^^ 


21  Heath,    Works   of    Archimedes,    ch.    vii. 

22  Heiberg,  Naturwissenschaften  und  Mathematik,  55. 

23  H.   Civ.   p.  643,  645. 

24  In   the  form  of  a  water-screw   still   in  use;   CiOW,   241   f. 

25  See  Hieron  of  Alexandria  and  Philon  of  Byzantium. 

26  H.  R.  Kult,  135  f. 


494  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

Eratosthenes.  The  advance  of  mathematical  and  mechanical 
study  inevitably  led  to  a  development  of  astronomy  and  of  mathemat- 
ical geography.  The  first  Hellenistic  master  of  this  field  was 
Eratosthenes  of  Cyrene  (275-195),  the  successor  of  Callimachus,  as 
chief  librarian  at  Alexandria.  There  he  was  able  to  study  the 
heavens  in  an  observatory  patterned  after  those  of  ancient  Babylon. 
His  most  celebrated  achievement  was  the  computation  of  the  circum- 
ference of  the  earth.  By  means  of  sun-dials  placed  at  Syene  and 
Alexandria,  5,000  stadia  apart,  he  determined  the  positions  of  the 
sun  from  these  two  points;  and  with  the  angle  thus  formed  he  com- 
puted the  earth's  circumference  at  250,000  stadia,  which  is  a  seventh 
part  in  excess  of  the  true  distance  of  25,000  English  miles.-'  He 
wrote  a  History  of  Geography  from  Homer  to  his  own  day,  in  which 
he  recognized  the  limitations  of  earlier  authors.  It  included  his  own 
map  of  the  world  with  an  explanation  of  it,  in  which  he  expressed 
the  possibility  of  reaching  India  by  sailing  west  across  the  Atlantic, 
providing  the  distance  should  not  prove  too  great  an  obstacle.-^  His 
achievements  were  vast  and  so  accurate  that  until  the  beginning  of 
modern  times  no  improvements  were  made  upon  them  except  in  the 
correction  and  addition  of  minor  geographical  details. 

Aristarchus  of  Samos.  Ptolemaic  system.  No  long  time  after- 
ward Aristarchus  of  Samos  (ca.  280)  brought  astronomy  to  the  high- 
est reach  attained  by  the  ancients.  He  discovered  that  the  volume  of 
the  sun  is  many  times  greater  than  that  of  the  world.  It  was  this 
fact  that  led  him  ultimately  to  the  conclusion  that  "  the  earth  annually 
revolves  round  the  sun  in  the  circumference  of  a  circle,  in  the  centre 
of  which  the  sun  remains  fixed."  -^  The  discovery  was  too  brilliant 
for  acceptance;  and  the  theory  of  the  spheres  continued  with  an 
important  modification.  Instead  of  assigning  a  plurality  of  spheres 
to  the  planet,  it  was  found  more  practicable  to  assume  that  each  planet 
moved  in  a  little  circle  whose  centre  lay  in  a  larger  circle  surrounding 
the  earth.  This  theory  of  epicycles  —  circles  upon  circles  —  pre- 
vailed, and  was  accepted  by  the  Egyptian  Claudius  Ptolemy,  an 
encyclopaedic  compiler  of  sciences  who  flourished  in  the  second  cen- 
tury A.  D.     After  him  it  came  to  be  known  as  the  Ptolemaic  system, 

27  The  best  source  for  this  calculation  is  Cleomedes.  in  H.  Civ.  no.  209  C.  See  explana- 
tion and  diagram  in  Tozer,  Hist,  of  Anc.  Geog.  170-2;  Berger,  H.,  Geschichte  der  wissen- 
schaftlichen  Erdkund  der  Griechen  (Leipzig;  Veit,  1903),  407  ff.  The  stadium  is  600  Greek 
feet.     A  Greek  foot  is  11.65  inches. 

28  Strabo,  i.  4.  6,  in  H.  Civ.  no.  211. 

29  On  the  question  of  size  and  distance,  Aristarchus,  in  H.  Civ.,  no.  212.  On  the 
heliocentric  theory,  Archimedes  in  H.  Civ.  no.  213. 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  495 

and   held    its    place    till    overthrown    by    Copernicus    (1473-1543). 

Zoology  and  Botany.  The  permeation  of  Egypt  and  western 
Asia  by  the  Greeks  brought  to  their  knowledge  a  vast  number  of 
animals  and  plants,  hitherto  unknown  to  them;  and  the  Ptolemies 
maintained  a  Zoological  Garden  at  Alexandria.  ^^  In  spite  of  these 
opportunities,  however,  zoology  and  botany  failed  to  make  an  appre- 
ciable advance  beyond  the  works  of  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus. 
People  had  but  a  curious  interest  in  animals,  whereas  botany  was  more 
vigorously  studied  as  an  auxiliary  to  medicine.  A  limited  number  of 
plants  and  animals  had  to  be  taken  into  account  in  scientific  agricul- 
ture, horticulture,  bee-keeping,  and  stock-breeding,  all  of  which  were 
diligently  cultivated.  The  loss  of  all  the  books  in  these  fields  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  fragments  ^^  has  left  us  ignorant  of  Hellenic 
intelligence  in  one  of  its  most  useful  departments. 

Vivisection.  The  growth  of  civilization  and  the  urbanization  of 
mankind  makes  an  ever-increasing  demand  upon  the  physician  for 
hygienic  regulations  and  for  the  cure  of  new  diseases.  Acquaintance 
with  the  Egyptian  custom  of  embalming  expelled  from  the  minds  of 
Greek  physicians  their  last  scruples  against  the  dissection  of  the  hu- 
man body.  For  the  iirst  time  in  history  vivisection  was  practiced  on 
condemned  criminals  furnished  to  the  physicians  by  the  Egyptian 
king.  ^"^  The  result  was  an  advance  in  anatomy  and  physiology  which 
made  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  medical  science.  Difficult  and  dan- 
gerous surgical  operations  could  now  be  performed  without  pain  to 
the  patient;   for  anaesthetics  were  now  known   and  administered.^^ 

Herophilus  —  his  great  achievements  in  medical  science.  The 
leading  physician  of  this  age  was  Herophilus  of  Chalcedon  whose 
achievement  was  to  bring  medical  science  to  a  height  never  exceeded 
by  the  ancients.  Much  of  the  progress  summed  up  in  the  preceding 
paragraph  was  due  to  him:  He  discovered  that  the  brain  is  the  seat 
of  the  mind,  and  that  the  nerves,  branching  out  from  the  brain  and 
the  spine,  are  the  medium  for  the  conveyance  of  sensation  and  will 
power  respectively.  His  study  of  the  eye  is  noteworthy.  In  his  di- 
agnosis of  ailments  for  which  he  was  especially  famous,  he  discovered 
the  value  of  pulsation,  which  became  the  chief  criterion  of  the  pa- 

30  Diod.    iii.   36.    3   ff. ;    Athen.   v.   32   (animals  in   a   procession   at   Antioch;    Aelian,   Nat. 

31  The    Geoponica,    consisting   of   excerpts   from   these    agricuhural   works,   made   in   the 
tenth  century  A.  D.   is  edited  by  H.  Beckh  (Leipzig;  Teubner,   1895). 

32  Celsus,    in  H.    Civ.    no.    207. 

33  On  the  use  of  mandragoras  as  an  anaesthetic,  Pliny,  in  H.   Civ.  no.  209. 


496  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

tient's  condition.^*  Whereas  other  physicians  believed  that  the  ar- 
teries were  normally  filled  with  air,  Herophilus  discovered  that  they 
contain  blood,  which  they  convey  from  the  heart  to  all  parts  of  the 
body.  In  other  words  he  discovered  substantially  the  circulation  of 
the  blood. ^^  Without  neglecting  diet  and  exercise  for  the  cure  of 
illness,  he  laid  great  stress  on  drugs,  especially  vegetable  medicines, 
as  the  "  hands  of  God." 

Unfortunately  Herophilus  was  too  far  in  advance  of  his  age  to  find 
complete  acceptance.  The  most  eminent  physician  after  him,  Erasis- 
tratus  of  Ceos,  insisted  that  the  arteries  were  normally  filled  with 
air  and  that  the  presence  of  blood  in  the  arteries  is  a  system  of  ill- 
ness. In  other  respects  he  made  actual  improvements  upon  Hero- 
philus, as  in  his  greater  stress  on  hygiene  and  his  clearer  distinction 
between  sensory  and  motor  nerves.  Opposed  to  the  teachings  of 
these  eminent  scientists  were  the  Empiricists,  who,  rejecting  all  reason, 
depended  wholly  on  experimentation.  There  were  charlatans,  too, 
as  at  present;  and  despite  all  intellectual  progress  incubation  and 
magical  cures  persisted. 

III.     Hellenistic  Literature 

New  literary  treatment.  For  an  appreciation  of  the  artistic 
literature  it  is  necessary  to  take  account  of  the  general  environment, 
especially  the  intense  urbanization  of  the  Greeks,  the  growth  of 
libraries,  the  keen  interest  in  science  and  erudition.  The  mental 
attitude  was  essentially  an  appreciation  of  the  past  and  an  effort 
to  master  its  vast  intellectual  treasures.  The  originality  of  the  age, 
the  achievement  of  adding  to  the  accumulated  store  of  knowledge 
has  been  seen  in  its  scientific  discoveries  and  mechanical  inventions. 
In  literature  we  shall  find  analogous  efforts  manifested  in  imitations 
of  the  past  and  in  the  working  out  of  new  problems  suggested  by 
the  greatly  changed  environment.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  polite 
literature  should  taste  of  erudition,  that  it  should  be  labored  and 
pedantic.  The  generality  of  men,  however,  who  lived  in  a  highly 
artificial  atmosphere  longed  for  diversion  and  rest,  the  freshness  of 
nature;  and  at  the  same  time  the  spirit  of  science  was  experimenting 
with  emotions  hitherto  but  little  used.  Far  from  being  decadent, 
therefore,  the  period  saw  the  beginning  of  a  new  literary  treatment 

34  On  the  nerves,  eve.  and  pulsation,  H.   Civ.  no.  207. 

35  Galen   and  Pliny',   in  H.    Civ.   no.   208. 


HELLENISTIC  CULTURE  497 

of  nature  and  man.  The  novel  element  in  nature  is  the  environment 
of  common  people,  of  shepherds,  ploughmen,  and  charcoal  burners, 
refreshed  with  the  dew  and  clear  in  the  sunlight  of  morning.  The 
new  force  in  human  kind  is  romantic  love  between  man  and  woman. 

Theocritus  —  Sicilian  poet.  These  are  prominent  features  in  the 
Sicilian  Theocritus  (about  305-250),  the  last  Greek  classic  and  the 
first  and  greatest  of  Hellenistic  poets.  His  creation,  the  Idyl,  is  a 
short  poem,  exquisitely  wrought.  It  possesses  a  wide  range  of 
character,  epic,  lyric,  and  dramatic.  Preferably  his  Idylls  treat  of 
common  persons  in  rural  scenes,  and  hence  have  been  described  as 
pastoral.  Though  he  lived  his  later  years  at  the  court  of  the  Ptole- 
mies, he  drew  his  inspiration  from  the  lovely  air  and  the  beautiful 
landscapes  of  Sicily,  which  wafted  through  his  sweet  poems,  refresh- 
ing breezes  with  delicious  memories  of  cool  shade  of  green  fields  and 
radiant  flowers  into  the  dusty  streets  and  arid  studios  of  Alexandria. 

Callimachus.  Whereas  Theocritus  stands  at  the  threshold  of  Alex- 
andrian life,  Callimachus  occupies  its  inmost  shrine.  Already  no- 
ticed as  chief  librarian  and  a  man  of  vast  learning,  he  is  equally  con- 
spicuous as  a  poet  of  stupendous  productivity.  His  own  writings  are 
said  to  have  filled  800  books  (rolls).  Of  all  these  works  there  re- 
main a  few  hymns  and  epigrams.  The  hymns  are  courtly,  composed 
for  royal  occasions.  With  great  talent  the  author  creates  brilliant 
effects  for  their  own  sake.  Doubtless  there  is  feeling  in  the  poet 
but  it  is  hidden  in  the  elaborate  apparatus  of  his  song.  At  the  same 
time  he  was  proclaimed  the  greatest  master  of  elegy. ^^  This  form  of 
poetry  was  used  for  the  expression  of  sentiment  on  all  subjects  and  in 
this  age  particularly  mythical  tales  of  love.  The  epigrams  show  him 
to  better  advantage.  They  are  in  the  elegiac  metre  but  are  short  and 
highly  polished.  Usually  the  epigram  expresses  an  occasional  senti- 
ment of  the  author  on  any  subfect  that  attracted  his  attention.  A 
large  anthology  of  epigrams,  which  has  been  preserved,  includes  the 
contributions  of  many  unknown  and  anonymous  poets.  They  are  a 
valuable  source  for  social  conditions  and  sentiments. ^'^ 

Didactic  verse.  The  romantic  epic.  In  didactic  verse  the  spirit 
of  scholarship  prevails.  The  aim  is  to  teach,  and  the  lines  are  with- 
out imagination  or  charm.  This  kind  of  poem  remained  dead  till  the 
Roman  Lucretius  endowed  it  with  life  and  power.     Quite  different  is 

36  Quintilian  X.   1,  58;  cf.  Propertius. 

37  A  few  examples  are  given  in  H.   Civ.  nos.   244-6. 


498  HELLENIC  HISTORY 

the  romantic  epic  represented  by  the  Argonautica  of  Apollonius,  an 
emigrant  from  Alexandria  to  Rhodes.  This  work  is  a  long  narrative 
of  a  popular  myth,  the  quest  for  the  Golden  Fleece.  In  this  respect 
it  is  an  imitation  of  the  past,  an  echo  from  Homer.  In  his  presenta- 
tion of  Medea's  love  for  Jason,  the  analysis  of  its  origin  and  growth 
and  conflict  with  duty,  the  author  has  created  a  new  theme,  but  one 
oft-treated  from  that  day  to  this.  Although  the  poet  lacked  the  genius 
for  making  it  a  success,  the  work  has  a  value  in  illustrating  the  in- 
tellectual efforts  of  the  period  and  in  the  suggestion  it  offered  to 
Vergil  for  his  Aeneid,  an  incomparably  superior  work. 

ADDITIONAL  READING 

Abbott,  Hellenica,  224-265,  387-424 ;  Baumgarten,  Wagner  and  Poland,  H.  R. 
Kult.,  73-139;  Beloch  III,  1,  chs.  xii-xiv;  Capps,  Homer  to  Theocritus,  402- 
456;  Christ,  Geschichte  der  Griech  Lit.  (5th  ed.,  Munich,  1908-13),  II,  1,  1-235; 
Croiset,  Hist,  de  la  lit.  grccque,  V,  chs.  i-vi;  Gercke  and  Norden,  Einleitung  ir 
die  Altertumswissenschaft  Naturwissenschaften  und  Mathematik  in  Klassischen 
Altertum  (Teubner,  1912-14);  Hicks,  Stoic  and  Epicurean  (Scribner,  1910); 
Holm,  III,  ch.  xxix,  IV,  chs.  vi,  xiv,  xx-xxiv;  Sedgwick  and  Taylor,  History 
of  Science  (Macmillan,  1917);  Stobart,  ch.  vi,  and  Epilogue;  Susemihl,  Gesch. 
der  griech.  Literature  der  Alexandrinerzeit  (Leipzig,  1891-2)  ;  Whibley,  205- 
207 ;  Wright,  414-461 ;  Mahaffy,  Greek  Life  and  Thought. 


INDEX 


Abdera,  in  Thrace,   founding  of,   161. 

Academy,    Athens,    231. 

Achaea,  rise  of,  29 ;  colonies  of,  60- 
61. 

Achaean    league,    459,    469. 

Achaeans,   in   Messenia,   85. 

Acragas  ( Agrigentum),  founding  of, 
62  ;  under  rule  of  Theron,  189  ;  prog- 
res„  of,  after  battle  of  Himera,  210; 
republic  at,  211;  temples  of,  213; 
taken  by  Carthaginians   (406),  375. 

Acrocorinthus,   citadel  of  Corinth,  58. 

Acusilaus,    genealogist,    156. 

Adonis,  worship  of,  337. 

Adrastus,   cult  of,   at   Sicyon,    74. 

Aegean  islands,  effects  of  Pelopon- 
nesian   war   on,    398-399. 

Aegina,  rise  of  .skilled  industries  in, 
58 ;  coinage  of,  67 ;  submission  of, 
to  Persia,  171;  temples  at,  231;  war 
between  Athens  and,  235-236;  con- 
quered by  Athens,  236. 

Aegospotami,   battle  of,   326-327. 

Aeolians,  in  Thessaly  and  Boeotia,  26; 
colonization  and  culture  of,  in  Les- 
bos, Chios,  and  adjpining  main- 
land, 41-51;  intellectual  life  of,  128- 
130. 

Aeschines,   Athenian  orator,   388,  436. 

Aeschylus,  story  of  battle  of  Salamis 
by,  183-184;'  rank  and  genius  of, 
214;  democratic  tendency  of,  218; 
extracts  from,  221-225;  religious 
spirit  of  age  as  expressed  by,  225- 
227;  comparison  of  Pindar  and, 
226-227;  comparison  of  Sophocles 
and,  283. , 

Aesymnetes,  or  dictator,   129. 

Aetolian  league,  rise  of,  468-469; 
government    of,    469. 

Actolians,    example   of  an    ethnos,    69. 

Agariste,  wife  of  Xanthippus,  74-75, 
174. 

Agathocles,  Sicilian  ruler,  398,  455, 
456. 

Agesilaus,    king    of  Lacedaemon,    355, 
356;  a  statesman  of  'blood-and-iron' 
type,   361  ;   Epaminondas  of  Thebes. 
vs.,  365. 

Agiads,  Lacedaemonian  royal  family, 
95. 

499 


Agias,  statue  of,  426  n. 

Agis,   king  of   Lacedaemon,  -323,   327. 

Agora.     Sec    ]\Iarkct-place. 

Agriculture,  3-4 ;  in  Late  Minoan  age, 
18;  among  Aeolians,  43-44;  as  pic- 
tured by  Homer,  43-44 ;  in  Hellas 
at  close  of  8th  century,  52-53 ; 
Athenian,  at  time  of  Pericles,  261- 
262 ;  decline  of,  at  period  of  Pelo- 
ponnesian  war,  397 ;  in  Attica  in 
4th  century,  401-402;  rotation  of 
crops,  402 ;  scientific  farming,  402- 
403;  laborers  on  farms,  406;  chief 
industry  of  Italy,  458. 

Agyrrhius,  pay  for  attendance  at  as- 
sembly  instituted   by,   416. 

Alcaeus,  poet  of  Mytilene,  128-130, 
134. 

Alcaic   stanzas,    130. 

Alcibiades,  rise  of,  314;  machinations 
of,  314-315;  encourages  massacre  of 
Melians,  315 ;  promotes  idea  of  ex- 
pedition against  Sicily,  318;  forced 
by  successful  schemes  of  enemies 
to  flee  to  Sparta,  319-320;  plottings 
of,  with  Persians,  323 ;  events  at 
Athens  leading  to  I'call  of,  323- 
324 ;  wins  victory  at  Cyzicus  for 
Athens,  324;  retirement  of,  after 
battle    off    Notium,    325-326. 

Alcman,  Lydian  poet  in  Sparta,  84- 
85 ;  parthenia  of,  89 ;  master  of 
choral  song,   135. 

Alcmeonidae,  57,  109,  111,  113;  ty- 
ranny of  Peisistratidae  overthrown 
by,    117. 

Alexander  of  Macedon,  son  of  Amyn- 
tas,   382. 

Alexander  of  Macedon,  son  of  Philip, 
441;  succeeds  to  throne,  445-446; 
early  conquests  of,  446-447 ;  con- 
quest of  Asia  Minor  and  Egypt, 
447;  defeats  Darius  at  Arbela,  447- 
448 ;  further  conquests,  448 ;  Oriental 
absolutism  of,  449-450;  expedition 
to  India,  4^0-451;  further  plans  of 
conquest  stojifped  by  death,  451  ; 
estimate  of  career,  451-452;  division 
of  empire  of,  454;  local  organization 
of  empire  of,  461-462;  satrapies  of, 
465 ;  failure  of,  to  assimilate  Euro- 


500 


INDEX 


pean  and  Asiatic  troops,  466";  a 
universal  empire  the  goal  of,  466- 
467 ;  excessive  homage  demanded 
by,  467 ;  impetus  to  ic'entific  studies 
resulting  from  marches  of,   490. 

Alexander,  son  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
453. 

Alexandria,  founding  of,  447 ;  com- 
merce and  wealth  of,  463-464 ;  mix- 
ture of  nationalities  in,  465 ;  great 
light-house  at,  477 ;  mosaics  made 
at,  483;  library  at,  490-491 ;  ]\Iuseum 
of,  491;   Zoological  Garden  at,  495. 

Alphabet,  elements  of,  derived  by 
Phoenicians  from  Philistines,  28; 
modification  of  Phoenician,  adopted 
by    Greeks,    124-125. 

Amnion,   oracle   of,   447. 

Amphictyonic  council,  the,  78. 

Amphictyony,  union  of  neighbors 
called,  77-78;  examples  of,  78. 

Amphipolis,  revolt  of,  against  Athens, 
309 ;  annexed  to  Macedonian  realm, 
384. 

Amyntas,  king  of  Macedon,  363 ; 
unification  of  Macedon  by,  382. 

Anabasis,  Xenophon's,  355;  chief  value 
of,   431. 

Anaesthetics,  early  knowledge  of,  495. 

Anatolia,  2.     See  Asia  INIinor. 

Anaxagoras,  philosopher,  278;  in- 
fluence of,  on  Pericles,  292 ;  resolu- 
tion aimed  against,  by  opponents 
of   Pericles,   303-304. 

Anaxilas,  tyrant  of  Rhegium,   188. 

Anaximander,    Ionic  philosopher,   152. 

Andros,   Athenian  colony  in,  243. 

Androtion,    Athenian    chronicler,    432. 

Animals,   sacrificial,   149. 

Antalcidas,    treaty    of,    358-359. 

Anthela,  shrine  of  Demeter  at,   78. 

Antigonus,  general  of  Alexander,  454; 
king  of  Macedon,  458. 

Antioch,  size  of,  463 ;  trade  centring 
at,  464 ;  statue  of  deity  of  city,  482 ; 
library  at,  491. 

Antiochus,  Athenian  commander  de- 
feated at  Notium,  326. 

Antiochus,  Seleucid  ruler,  defeated  by 
Rome,   459. 

Antipater,  governor  of  Macedonia,  453. 

Antiphon,   Athenian   plotter,  325,   324. 

Antisthcnes  of  Athens,  Cynic  philos- 
opher,   486. 

Antium,    statue   found   at,   480. 

Apaturia,   feast  of  the,   106. 

Apella,  Lacedaemonian  popular  as- 
sembly, 96. 


Apelles,  painter  of  Hellenistic  age, 
482-483. 

Aphaia,    goddess,    231. 

Aphrodite,    deity,    21. 

"  Aphrodite  of  Cnidus,"  siatue,   425. 

"  Aphrodite    of   INIelos,"    statue,    480. 

"  Aphrodite  Rising  from  the  Sea," 
painting,   483. 

Apollo,  in  Hellenic  religion,  40,  105; 
temple  to,  at  Cumae,  60;  shrine  of, 
at  Delos,  78;  temple  of,  at  Delphi, 
78,   79,   149;   statues  of,    140,   141. 

Apollonius  of  Rhodes,  Hellenistic 
poet,  Argonautica  of,   498. 

Apoxyomenus    of    Lysippus,    425-426. 

Aqueduct,  built  by  Pcisistratidae  at 
Athens,  116;  built  by  Gelon  at 
Syracuse,  209. 

Aqueducts,    in   Greek   cities,   477. 

Arabian  gulf,  surveyed  by  Nearchus, 
451. 

Arbela,    battle    of,    447-448. 

Arcadia,  98 ;  league  of,  with  Lacedae- 
mon,  98-99. 

Arcadian  league,  founding  of,  367-368. 

Archias,  founder  of  Syracuse,  61. 

Archidamus,  Lacedaemonian  king, 
457  n. 

Archilochus,  Greek  poet,  127-128. 

Archimedes  of  Syracuse,  mathematician 
and  physicist,   492-493. 

Architecture,  at  Athens,  139;  Greek 
character  as  expressed  by,  273; 
works  on,  275;  departures  from 
Periclean  standard,  348-349 ;  changes 
in,  in  4th  century,  427.  See  also 
Art. 

Archons,  duties  and  functions  of,  104; 
change  in  method  of  election  of 
(about  487),  175;  in  age  of  Peri- 
cles, 259. 

Areopagiticus  of  Isocrates,  434. 

Areopagus,  council  of  the,  105,  108; 
as  affected  by  reforms  of  Solon,  113- 
114;  power  of,  lessened  under  de- 
mocracy, 120;  meeting-place  of, 
228 ;  overthrow  of,  in  age  of  Peri- 
cles, 251. 

Arethusa,    fountain    at    Syracuse,    61. 

Arginusae,   battle  of,  326. 

Argos,  97-98;  defeat  of  Lacedaemon 
by,  at  Hysiae,  98;  only  state  not 
leagued  with  Lacedaemon  before 
close  of  6th  century,  100;  submis- 
sion of,  to  Persia,  171  ;  league  be- 
tween  Athens  and,   234. 

Arion,  Lesbic  poet,   145. 


INDEX 


501 


Aristagoras,  tyrant  of  Miletus,  164- 
165. 

Aristarchus  of  Samos,  astronomer, 
494. 

Aristarchus  of  Samothrace,  491   n. 

Aristeides,  leader  of  democratic  wing 
at  Athens,  175;  an  opponent  of 
Themistoclcs,  177;  ostracism  of, 
177;  at  battle  of  Salamis,  183;  re- 
turn of,  to  favor  with  Athenians, 
184;  in  command  of  Athenians 
against  Byzantium,  195 ;  apportion- 
ment of  assessment  by,  among  mem- 
bers of  Delian  confederacy,  196- 
197;  wins  title  of  "the  Just,"  197; 
activity  of,  in  increasing  control  of 
Athens  over  her  allies,  202 ;  demo- 
cratic development  at  Athens  due  to, 
204 ;  ostracism  of,  205 ;  uncertainty 
concerning  end  of,  206;  representa- 
tive of  democratic  tendency  of 
Athenian    society,    217-218. 

Aristocracy,  change  from  monarchy  to, 
as  form  of  government  among  Hel- 
lenes, 71;  change  to  tyranny,  72-73; 
transition  from  monarchy  to,  in 
Athens,  104;  spirit  of,  in  Athenian 
society,  213-2l4;  divine  virtues  of 
Athenian,    215. 

Aristogeiton,  assassin  of  Hipparchus, 
116-117. 

Aristophanes,  dramatist,  quoted,  308, 
312,  313;  the  Knights  of,  310;  the 
Peace  of,  312;  agitation  for  rights 
of  women  in  drama  of,  335,  408  n. ; 
doubts  of  the  intellectuals  expressed 
by,  338-339 ;  burlesquing  of  oracles 
by,  339;   comedies  of,  429. 

Aristophanes  of  Byzantium,   491   n. 

Aristotle,  on  the  oligarchy,  76;  quoted, 
81-82;  on  conditions  among  Lace- 
daemonians, 396;  idea  of,  of  caring 
for  poor,  417;  Constitution  of  the 
Athenians  by,  432;  pupil  of  Plato, 
438,  441 ;  system  of  reasoning  of, 
441-444;  importance  of  the  Politics, 
444 ;  teacher  of  Alexander,  445 ;  in- 
fluence of,  and  '  continuation  of 
work  after  his  death,   490. 

Arithmetic,   advances   in,   275. 

Armor,  in  Mycenaean  age,  19;  im- 
provements and  changes  in,  by 
lonians,  39;  of  Spartans,  94;  of 
7th  century,    102. 

Arms,  exported  by  Athenians  in  4th 
century,    404. 

Army,  Lacedaemonian,  94-95 ;  reform 
of  Athenian,  in  middle  of  7th  cen- 


tury, 108;  reorganization  of  Athe- 
nian, by  Cleisthenes,  122;  of  Dariu.s, 
162  n.;  of  Athens  (490),  172;  of 
Xerxesi,  in  expedition  against 
Greece,  179;  organization  of  Car- 
thaginian, 188;  of  Epaminondas, 
366;  of  Philip  of  Macedon,  383- 
384;  of  Darius  at  Arbela,  448; 
failure  of  Alexander  to  assimilate 
European   and    Asiatic   troops,   466. 

Arrhidaeus,  half-brother  of  Alexander, 
453. 

Arrian,  cited  on  Alexander,  450. 

Art,  of  Early  Minoan  age,  9-10;  of 
Middle  Minoan  age,  11,  12;  in 
Late  Minoan  age,  13-15;  cutting  of 
precious  stones,  18;  of  the  lonians, 
34-35 ;  Orientalized  by  lonians,  34, 
36;  in  Athens  under  Peisistratidac 
(560-510),  139;  effects  upon,  of 
winning  of  war  with  Persia,  191- 
192;  of  age  of  war  heroes  (479- 
461),  227-233;  in  Periclean  Athens, 
266  ff. ;  the  Odeum  and  the  temple 
of  Hephaestus,  267-268 ;  the  Parthe- 
non, 268-273;  development  of  Athe- 
nian in  modern  directions  (period 
431-404),  347-351;  two  types  of 
civilization  represented  in  Athenian, 
349,  351;  value  of,  for  appreciation 
of  Greek  history,  423 ;  account  of, 
in  4th  century,  423-429 ;  in  Hellen- 
istic age,  478  ff. ;  patrons  of,  480; 
children  in,  482 ;  painting  in  Hel- 
lenistic age,  482-483;  portraits  and 
wall   paintings,    483 ;    mosaics,    483. 

Artaphernes,  satrap  of  Sardis,  164, 
172. 

Artaxerxes,  king  of  Persia,  237 ;  ex- 
pedition of  Cyrus  against,  354-355. 

Artemis,  deity,  21  ;  temple  to,  at 
Ephesus,  33. 

Artemisium,  encounter  between  Greeks 
and   Persians   at,    180. 

Artemis  Orthia,  36,  41,  88. 

Artisans,  guilds  of,  57;  in  Periclean 
Athens,   265. 

Asia  Minor,  Anatolia  modern  name 
for,  2  n. ;  subjugation  of,  by  Persia, 
158-166;  conquest  of,  by  Alexan- 
der, 446-447 ;  rulers  of,  after  Alex- 
ander's death,  454 ;  outcome  of 
Hellenistic  kingdom  in,  457-458; 
conquest  of,  by  Rome,  459 ;  royal 
domains  in,  seized  by  Alexander, 
470, 

Asiatic  Greeks,  conquest  of,  by  Lyd- 
ians   and    Persians,    158-161 ;    place 


502 


INDEX 


of,  in  Persian  empire,  161-162;  re- 
volt of,  164-166;  downfall  of,  at 
Miletus,  and  effects,  166;  question 
of  protection  of,  by  European 
Greeks,  194-195;  concessions  to,  by 
Persian  king,  238 ;  surrendered  to 
Persia  by  treaty  of  Antalcidas  (387), 
359 ;  condition  of,  under  Persian 
rule,  399 ;  treatment  of,  by  Alexan- 
der,  461-462. 

Aspasia,  companion  of  Pericles,  293 ; 
prosecution  of,  303 ;  son  of  Pericles 
and,    condemned    to   death,    326. 

Assembly,  Athenian,  108,  120;  pay  for 
attendance  at,    in   4th  century,   416. 

Assyria,  empire  of,    159-160. 

Asteropos,   ephorate  of,    100   n. 

Astronomy,  knowledge  of,  275-276; 
of  Eudoxus,  437 ;  of  Aristotle,  442 ; 
advances  in,  in  Hellenistic  age,  494. 

Atheism,  in  drama  of  Critias,  338. 

Athena,  goddess,  41  ;  worship  of,  in 
Attica,  106;  temple  to,  on  Acropolis 
at  Athens  (Older  Parthenon),  139; 
wooden  statue  of,  139-140;  mascu- 
line character  of,  222 ;  bronze  statue 
of,  on  Acropolis,  228 ;  great  temple 
to  (Parthenon),  268-273;  the  Erech- 
theum   a   temple    to,    349. 

Athena  Parthenos,   statue  of,  272-273. 

Athens,  city  of,  34;  history  of,  from 
Middle  Age  to  reforms  of  Cleis- 
thenes,  102-122;  Eleusinian  mys- 
teries at,  144-145;  dramatic  festi- 
vals at,  145;  relations  between 
Persia  and,  162,  164;  expedition 
against  Persians,  165;  Themistocles 
archon  of,  167-168;  joins  Pelopon- 
nesian  league,  171;  battle  of  Mara- 
thon won  by,  173;  struggle  of  repub- 
licans and  tyrannists  at,  174-175; 
abandonment  of,  at  time  of  invasion 
of  Xerxes,  181-182;  burning  of,  by 
Persians,  182;  fortification  of,  after 
Persian  wars,  194;  naval  leadership 
transferred  to,  195 ;  fortification  of 
(479),  197-198;  population  of,  after 
Persian  invasion,  199-200;  restora- 
tion of  agriculture  and  trade  by, 
200-201 ;  olive  industry  of,  201 ; 
imports  of.  201  ;  increasing  control 
of,  over  allies  in  Delian  confederacy, 
202 ;  crushes  revolts  of  Naxos  and 
Thasos,  202-203;  forms  treaties 
with  individual  states,  203-204; 
growth  of  imperial  policy  abroad, 
democratic  at  home,  204;  clash  be- 
tween democrats  and  conservatives, 


204-205;  debt  of,  to  Themistocles, 
206;  quarrel  between  Lacedaemon 
and  (462),  208;  aristocratic  spirit 
of  society  at,  213-216;  period  from 
461  to  445,  234  ff . ;  war  with  Pelo- 
ponnesians,  235-236;  the  Long 
Walls,  235 ;  at  height  of  power  on 
land  (456),  236-237;  steps  in  de- 
cline of  power  of,  237-239 ;  empire 
of,  239  ff. ;  fundamental  weakness 
of  imperial  system,  242 ;  coloniza- 
tion of  empire,  242 ;  opposition  to 
Pericles  in,  244 ;  democracy  of,  at 
home,  248  ff. ;  legislative  and  judi- 
cial systems,  248-257 ;  science  and 
philosophy  in  age  of  Pericles,  275- 
281;  history  and  drama  in,  281- 
291 ;  Pericles'  interpretation  of  char- 
acter of  citizens,  293-299 ;  war  be- 
tween Peloponnesians  and,  from 
431  to  beginning  of  Sicilian  expedi- 
tion, 301-315-;  pestilence  in  (430), 
306;  Sicilian  expedition,  318-321; 
significance  to,  of  Sicilian  disaster, 
321;  last  years  of  Peloponnesian 
war,  and  results  to,  322-328;  defeat 
of,  at  Aegospotami,  326-327;  ex- 
haustion and  humbling  of,  327-328; 
intellectual  development  at  (431- 
404),  329-351;  rule  of  the  Thirty 
at,  353-354;  and  coalition  against 
Lacedaemon,  356;  resurrection  of, 
358;  second  confederacy  of,  or- 
ganized in  377,  361-362;  activities 
of,  in  period  of  Theban  supremacy, 
367-368,  370,  371 ;  war  with  Philip 
of  Macedon,  384-387 ;  union  with 
Thebes,  389 ;  favorable  treatment  of, 
by  Philip,  390;  condition  of,  after 
Peloponnesian  war  (4th  century), 
400-410;  social  aspects  of  state  in 
4th  century,  411  ff  ;  working  of  a 
highly  developed  democracy  shown 
by,  415-416;  democracy  of,  in  4th 
century,  420-421 ;  during  reign  of 
Alexander,   452,   453. 

Athletes,    statues   of,    140-141. 

Athletics,   competitions   in,    146.    148. 

Athos,  Mount,  destruction  of  Persian 
fleet  off,  170;  Xerxes'  canal  through 
isthmus   of,    178. 

Atomists  and  atomic  theory,   278. 

Attains,    dynast:,'   of,   478-479. 

Atthidcs,    chronicles    called.    431. 

Attica,  amalgamation  of  Hellenic  and 
native  races  in,  34;  use  of  iron  in, 
38;  country  life  in,  at  close  of  8th 
century,    53,    55;    essentially    agri- 


INDEX 


503 


cultural  in  7th  and  fith  centuries, 
59;  unitication  of,  102-103;  social 
and  economic  conditions  in,  during 
4th   century,   400-410. 

Babylon,  empire  of,  160;  taken  by 
Alexander,  448 ;  residence  of  Alex- 
ander in,  451  ;  events  in,  following 
death  of  Alexander,  453-454;  trea- 
sury of  Alexander's  empire  at,  465. 

Babylonia,  2 ;  contrasts  between 
Greece  and,  2 ;  divination  from 
sacrificial  animals  introduced  from, 
149. 

Bacchiadae,  aristocracy  at  Corinth, 
58;   overthrow  of,   by   Cypselus,    73. 

Bacchylides  of  Ceos,  lyric  poet,  135, 
215;  description  of  social  gathering 
by,  217;  quoted,  219;  last  great 
lyrist,    331. 

Bagdad,    Seleucia   the   parent   of,    464. 

Banking,  at  Athens  in  4th  century, 
406-407. 

Basileios,    Athens,    228. 

Basilica,    Roman,    228. 

"Battle   of   Issus,"    mosaic,    483. 

"  Battle  of  Marathon,"  Polygnotus', 
230. 

Beauty,   Greek   idea  of,   266. 

Beehive   tombs,    22-23. 

Biography,  growth  of,  430 ;  the  first 
Hellenic,  430;  Xenophon's  writings, 
430-431. 

Black  Sea,  Ionian  colonies  on,  63 ; 
products  of  region,  64 ;  Athenian 
colonies  ,  243,  245-246;  imports  from 
region,    246. 

Boeotia,  horses  in,  4 ;  progress  in  cul- 
ture in.  15;  held  by  Aeolian.s,  26; 
vegetables  from,  imported  to  .Athens, 
201 ;    alliance  of   Athens  with,    236. 

Books,  Athenian  trade  in,  404;  col- 
lection   of,    in    libraries,    490-491. 

Bosphorus,  bridge  of  boats  built 
across    by    Darius,    162. 

Botany,  study  of,  in  Hellenistic  age, 
495. 

Boxing,    in   ISIinoan    age,    23. 

Boys,  exposure  of  deformed,  409. 
See    Youth. 

Brasidas,  Spartan  general,  310. 

Britain,    early   voyages   to,   63. 

Bronze,  casting  of,  introduced  from 
Orient,  58 ;  work  in,  produced  in 
Aegina,   58;   portraiture   in,   427. 

Bronze  age  (Middle  Minoan),  9,  11, 
13. 


Bull-leaping   in   Minoan   age,   23. 

Burial  rites,  sacred  character  of,  ac- 
cording to  Sophocles,  285. 

Byzantium,  a  Greek  colony,  64;  con- 
quered   by    Greek    force,    195. 

Cadmos   of    Miletos,    genealogist,    156. 

Calendar  of  Meton,  276. 

Callias,  220;  ambassador  to  Persia, 
238. 

Callicrates,  architect  of  Parthenon, 
268. 

Callicratidas,  Lacedaemonian  com- 
mander, 326. 

Callimachus,  Athenian  ■  commander, 
173. 

Callimachus,  scholar  and  poet,  491  n., 
497. 

Callinus,    elegiac   poet,    126. 

Callisthenes,  philosopher  and  historian, 
put  to  death  by  Alexander,  449-450. 

Cambyses,   reign  of,    161. 

Campania,  Italy,  conquered  by  Sabel- 
lians,   316 

Canon  of  Polycleitus,  348. 

Canton,   organization   of,    70. 

Carthage,  growth  of,  and  increase  in 
power,  187;  combination  with  Etrus- 
cans, 187;  new  war  policy  of,  and 
invasion  of  Sicily,  188;  defeat  of, 
in  battle  of  Himera,  189;  wars  be- 
tween Dionysius  and,  377;  war  be- 
tween Sicily  and,  during  tyranny 
of  Agathocles,  455 ;  expelled  from 
Sicily  by  Rome,  457;  destroyed  by 
Rome,  459. 

Cassander,    ruler    of    Macedon,    454. 

Cassiterides  Isles,   63. 

Celts  in  Asia  IMinor,  458. 

Census  classes,  four,  at  Athens,  106, 
108;   revision  of,   by  Solon,   113. 

Cephalus  of  Syraucse,    armorer,   263. 

Chaeronea,    battle    of,    389-390. 

Chalcidae,    57. 

Chalcidic    league,    360,    385-386. 

Chalcidic  peninsula,  settlement  of,  63. 

Chalcis,  industrial  city,  58;  coinage 
of,  67;  example  of  oligarchy,  76; 
position  of,  in  Athenian  empire, 
241. 

"  Charioteer   of  Delphi,"   statue,  233. 

Chersonesus,  ^aken  by  Persians,  164; 
tyranny  of  IMiltiades  at,  171;  en- 
larged and  fortified  by  Pericles,  243. 

Ches.s-playing  in   Minoan   age,   24. 

Children,  training  of,  in  Crete,  82; 
expo.sure  of  weak  or  deformed, 
409;    in   Plato's    Republic,   440;    in 


504 


INDEX 


Hellenistic   art,   482. 

Chilon,   ephorate  of,   100  n. 

Chios,  occupied  by  Aeolians,  42. 

Choral   lyrics,    134-13.^. 

Choregia,  one  of  the  liturgies,  200. 

Chorus,    evolution    of    word,    84. 

Chronicles,    advent   of,    431-434. 

Cimmerians,   northern   pirates,    126  n. 

Cimon,  son  of  Miltiades,  174;  ex- 
pansion of  Delian  confederacy  by, 
197;  activity  of,  in  interests  of 
Athens,  202,  203 ;  as  leader  of  Con- 
servatives, forces  ostracism  of  Aris- 
teides,  205 ;  success  as  leader  of 
Conservatives,  207 ;  leads  force  in 
aid  of  Sparta  against  rebellious 
helots,  208 ;  lack  of  success  and 
ostracism  of,  208;  social  side  of, 
216;  character  of,  as  youth  and 
man,  217;  wife  of,  220;  as  patron 
of  art,  228,  230,  231;  recall  of,  and 
expedition  led  by  to  Cyprus,  237; 
death   of,    237. 

Cinadon,    Spartan    conspirator,    395. 

City,  of  Homer,  43,  44 ;  development 
of,  70;  in  Hellenistic  age,  475,  477- 
478. 

City-state,  evolution  of  the,  69-80 ; 
Sparta  the  only,  in  Laconia,  84; 
developments  from,  as  affecting 
art,   literature,   and  philosophy,  429. 

City-states,  of  Crete,  81 ;  in  Arcadia, 
98;    advantages   of,    to   Hellas,    191. 

City-state  supremacy,  character  of 
Hellenic,   372-373. 

Class  consciousness  in  4th  century, 
418-419. 

Classes,  in  Plato's  Republic,  439-440. 

Clay  fields  of  Greece,   4. 

Cleidemus,    early   chronicler,   432. 

Cleisthenes,  Athenian  statesman,  117- 
118;  Athenian  government  as  re- 
organized  by,    118-122. 

Cleisthenes,   tyrant   of   Sicyon,    74. 

Cleitus,  Macedonian  killed  by  Alexan- 
der,   449. 

Cleombrotus,  king  of  Lacedaemon, 
366. 

Cleomenes,  King  of  Sparta,  117;  aid 
of,    asked    by    Aristagoras,    164-165. 

Cleomenes,   dictator  of  Egypt,  465. 

Cleon  the  tanner,  307 ;  leadership  of, 
at  Athens,  309;  death  of,  310; 
oratory  of,    330. 

Cleopatra    of    Egypt,    459. 

Climate  of  Hellas.   1. 

Cnidus,   naval    battle   off,   356-357. 

Cnossus,    traces   of   neolithic    life    at, 


8,  9 ;  chief  seat  of  culture  in  Middle 
Minoan  age,  11;  palace  at,  13; 
mural  frescoes  at,  13,  14;  king's 
palace  at,  16-17;  destruction  of,  28; 
an    important    Cretan   city,    81. 

Coal,    lacking    in    Greece,    4. 

Codrus,  ancestor  of  Medontidae,  156  n. 

Coinage,  early,  67-68 ;  iron,  in  Sparta, 
87 ;  adoption  of,  at  Athens  under 
Solon,  112;  of  Persian  empire  un- 
der Darius,  161;  Athenian,  in  age 
of  Pericles,  242 ;  in  Aetolian  and 
Achaean    leagues,    470. 

Coins,   portrait   sculpture   on,    427. 

Colonies,  founding  of  (750-550),  59; 
Minoan,  Etruscan,  and  Chalcidic, 
in  Italy,  59-60;  Achaean,  60-61; 
Dorian,  61-62;  northern  Aegean, 
63;  in  Gaul,  63;  on  the  Hellespont 
and  Propontis,  63-64 ;  Naucratis  in 
Egypt,  64 ;  motive  and  effects  of 
founding,  66;  process  of  founding 
and  organization  of,  66-67 ;  estab- 
lished by  Athenian  empire,  242-243; 
Alexander's   plan   regarding,    463. 

Colophon,    Ionian    city,    159. 

Colossus    of    Rhodes,    477,    482. 

Columns  of  Parthenon,   270. 

Comedy,  Greek,  299,  335,  338,  429. 
Sec  Aristophanes. 

Commerce,  of  Aegean  region  with 
Egypt,  64 ;  of  Athens  in  4th  cen- 
tury, 403 ;  in  Alexander's  empire, 
463-464. 

Concordia,  temple  of,  at  Acragas, 
210. 

Conon,  Athenian  general,  326;  in 
command  of  Persian  fleet,  356;  de- 
feat of  Peloponnesian  fleet  by  (off 
Cnidus),    356-357. 

Copper,  introduction  of,  in  Early 
Rlinoan  age,  10.  See  Mining  and 
minerals. 

Copper  age,   9-11. 

Copper-bronze    age,    9. 

Corax    of    Syracuse,    rhetorician,    279. 

Corcyra,  Athenian  designs  upon, 
among  causes  of  Peloponnesian  war, 
302. 

Corinth,  industries  and  commerce  of, 
58 ;  tyranny  at,  73 ;  enters  Pelopon- 
nesian league,  99 ;  Hellenic  con- 
gress at  (481),  179;  war  with 
Athens  (458-449),  235-236;  des- 
troyed by  Rome,  459 ;  splendor  of, 
before    Roman    destruction,    473. 

Corinthian  capital,  appearance  of  the, 
427. 


INDEX 


505 


Corinthian    war    (395    (o    387),    356- 

358. 
Coronea,    battle  of,   238. 
Corsica,     Phocaean     colony     in,     161 ; 
Phocacans    driven    from,     187-188. 
Cosmogony,    Greek,    150-151. 
Council,    the   Homeric,    46-47. 
Courts,    establishment   of,    154;    Athe- 
nian,   in    age   of   Pericles,    250-257. 
Sec   Laws. 
Craftsmen    in    Periclean    Athens,    265. 
Crates   of   Cilicia,    scholar,    492. 
Cratinus,    comic    poet,    267. 
Cresilas,  "  Pericles  "  by,  426. 
Crete,    deposits   left    in,    by    people   of 
neolithic   age,  8 ;    pictographs  found 
in,   10;  progress  in  culture  in  early, 
11;   civilization  in,  in  Late  Minoan 
age,    13;    in    Middle    Minoan    age, 
15;   cities  of,  unwalled,   19;   Dorian 
emigration  to,  31-32;  city-states  of, 
81;    social  classes  in,   81-82;    train- 
ing of  children  and  youths  in,  82-83  ; 
mode    of   life    in,    and   political   de- 
velopment    of,     83 ;     athletic     and 
musical   competitions   in,    146. 

Critias,  atheism  in  drama  of,  338 ;  a 
leader  in  the  Thirty,  353 ;  death  of, 
354. 

Croesus,  king  of  Lydia,  159;  defeat 
of,  by  Cyrus,   160. 

Croton,   Achaean  city,  61. 

Crypteia,    in    Sparta,    91-92. 

Cumae,  Chalcidic  colonization  of, 
60;  industries  and  culture  of,  60; 
naval  battle  off,  210-211;  tyranny 
at,   211. 

Cunaxa,    battle   of,   355. 

Curetes,   defined,  83. 

Cybele,  nature  deity,  21,  40,  331. 

Cyclades,  10 ;  an  early  leader  in  cul- 
ture, 11;  Dorian  emigration  to,  31- 
32. 

Cycle,    group    of    poems    called,    125. 

Cyclopean   masonry,   21. 

Cydonia,    Cretan    city,    32,    81. 

Cyllyrians,    Sicilian    serfs    called,    62. 

Cylon,   coup   d'etat  of,    109. 

Cyme.    Aeolian    settlement,    42. 

Cynic  school  of  philosophy,   486. 

Cynoscephalae,  battle  of,  459. 

Cyprus,  copper  from,  10;  Cimon's 
expedition  to,   237. 

Cypselidae,  tyranny  of,  at  Corinth, 
73. 

Cyropedia,    Xenophon's,    431. 

Cyrus,   Persian   king,    160,    161. 


Cyrus,  satrap  of  Sardis,  325 ;   expedi- 
tion  of,   354-355. 
Cythera,   garrison   at,   93. 
Cyzicus,    battle    of,    324. 

Daedalus,  mythical  character,  35. 
Daemons,   conception   of,    136. 

Damon,   adviser  of  Pericles,  292. 

Dancing,  in  Minoan  age,  24. 

Danube,   Darius'    expedition   to,    162. 

Daphnacus,  Syracusan  commander, 
375. 

Darius,  king  of  Persia,  161;  organi- 
zation of  empire  under,  161-162; 
invasion  of  Europe  by,  162;  death 
of,    178. 

Darius,  Persian  ruler  defeated  by 
Alexander,    446-448. 

Datis,    Median    commander,    172. 

Dead,  worship  of,  in  Mycenaean  age, 
22 ;  treatment  of,  by  Homeric 
Greeks,  49-50;  origin  of  religion  in 
worship   of,    1 36. 

Decarchies  established  by  Lysander, 
353,  354. 

Decelea,   Spartan  garrison  at,   320. 

Deities,  in  Minoan  age,  21;  communal 
137;  tutelary,  of  cities,  482.  See 
also    Gods. 

Delian  confederacy,  beginning  of,  195 ; 
organization  of  (477),  196;  assess- 
ment of  members,  196-197;  ex- 
pansion of,  197 ;  increasing  con- 
trol of  Athens  over,  202 ;  entrance 
of  Aegina   into,   236. 

Delium,   Athenian  defeat  at,   310. 

Delos,  amphictyony  of,  78 ;  centre  of 
Delian   confederacy,    196. 

Delphi,  temple  of  Apollo  at,  78,  79; 
Pythian  games  at,  146;  oracle  of 
Apollo  at  149 ;  "  Treasury  of  the 
Athenians"  at,  177;  advice  of  oracle, 
during  invasion  of  Xerxes,  181; 
treasury  at,  seized  by  Phocians,  387. 

Delphinion.    shrine   near   Athens,    110. 

Demes,  political  divisions  in  Attica, 
118. 

Demeter,  shrine  of,  at  Anthela,  78; 
worship    of,    144-145. 

Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  victory  of,  off 
Cyprus,   481. 

Demigods,  Greek  victors  viewed  as, 
192. 

Demiurgi,    class   of,    in   Attica,    105. 

Democracy,  establishment  of,  in  At- 
tica, 117-122;  constitutional  bal- 
ance in  Athenian,  122;  growth  of, 
at     Athens,     204;      Aristeides     the 


506 


INDEX 


founder  of,  204;  results  to  Atheni- 
an, of  Sicilian  disaster,  322-323 ; 
restoration  of  (410),  325;  as  form 
of  government  in  4th  century,  413- 
414;  advance  toward  pure,  414-415; 
Athens  a  highly  developed,  415- 
416;  ancient,  considered  from  evolu- 
tionary   standpoint,    421-422. 

Democritus,   philosopher,   278. 

Demosthenes,  Athenian  orator  and 
statesman,  quoted,  227-228;  exis- 
tence of  gods  doubted  by,  338;  on 
devastation  of  Phocis,  387-388; 
forms  new  Hellenic  federation,  389 ; 
opponent  of  Philip  of  Macedon, 
385-386,  388-380;  quoted  on  Athe- 
nian commerce,  403 ;  quoted  to  show 
class  consciousness  of  his  time,  419; 
account  of  life  and  career,  436- 
437 ;  fined,  imprisoned  and  exiled, 
452 ;  return  and  death  of,  453 ;  on 
Alexander    as    son    of    Zeus,    467. 

Demosthenes,  Athenian  commander  of 
force  against  Syracuse,   320-321. 

Despotism,  self-imposed,  at  Sparta, 
90. 

Dialogues  of  Plato,   437-438. 

Dicasteria,   Athenian   law   courts,  251. 

Dictaean   cave,    tablet   from,    18. 

Didymaeum,    temple   at    Miletus,    427. 

Diodorus,    historian,   376  n. 

Dionysia,    festivals    of,    75,    145. 

Dionysius  I,  tyrant  of  Greek  Sicily 
and  Italy,  360-361,  363 ;  rise  of, 
375-376;  extension  and  consolida- 
tion of  power  of,  376-377;  first  war 
with  Carthage,  377 ;  nature  of  gov- 
ernment and  personal  character  of, 
378-379;  historical  judgment  of,  379. 

Dionysius  II,  reign  of,  380. 

Dionvsus,  festivals  in  honor  of,  75, 
145;   cult  of,   143. 

Discobolus   of    Myron,    232-233. 

Divination,   means  of,    148,    149. 

Divine  right,  origin  of  rule  by,  467- 
468 

Divorces  among   Athenians  409. 

Dodona,  oracle  at,    149. 

Dorian  society,  24 ;  colonization  and 
culture  in  Hellas,  31-41. 

Doryphorus  of   Polycleitus,   426. 

Drachma    pieces,   67. 

Draco,  codification  of  laws  by,  109; 
character  of  laws  of,  110-111;  code 
of,   revised   by   Solon,    113. 

Drama,  origin  of,  145;  training  in, 
295-296. 

Dramas,    of    Sophocles,    284-291;    of 


Euripides,  331-334;  of  Aristophanes^ 
335 ;  Greek  cultural  revolution  re- 
vealed in,  337-341. 

Dress,  in  ISIinoan  age,  15-16;  under 
Ionian  culture,  36-38 ;  of  women 
in   7th  and   6th   centuries,    132. 

Dwellings.     See   Houses. 

"Dying   Gaul,"   statue,   476,   479. 

Earth,  early  reasoning  about,  150- 
152. 

Ecclesia.     See   Popular   assembly. 

Education   in   Periclean   age,   295-296. 

Egypt,  2 ;  contrasts  between  Greece 
and,  2,  6;  introduction  of  copper 
from,  10;  early  commerce  between 
Aegean  region  and,  10-11;  colony 
of  Naucratis  in,  64;  Greek  com- 
merce with,  64,  66;  scientific  learn- 
ing from,  150-151;  revolt  of,  against 
Persia,  178;  Athenian  expedition 
in  aid  of,  against  Persia,  237 ;  con- 
quered by  Alexander,  447 ;  Ptolemy, 
ruler  of,  454;  course  of  Hellenistic 
kingdom  in,  457;  decline  of,  and 
power  of  Rome  over,  459 ;  wealth 
of,  463-464;  condition  of  laborers 
in,  471;  land  system  in,  471; 
scholarly  and  scientific  work  in, 
490-491. 

Elea,  resistance  of,  to  Sabellians,  316- 
317. 

Eleatic  school  of  philosophy,  153;  con- 
tinuation of,  in  Periclean  age,  277- 
278. 

Elegy,  development  of  the,  126;  Cal- 
limachus  the  master  of,  497. 

Eleusis,  annexation  of,  to  Attica,  103 ; 
mysteries  of,    144-145,    337. 

Elpinice,  example  of  emancipated 
woman,  220. 

Elysium,    the    Homeric,    50. 

Empedocles  of  Acragas,  philosopher, 
277-278. 

Empiricists,    school    of,    496. 

Epaminondas,  Theban  leader,  365 ; 
wins  battle  of  Leuctra,  366;  naval 
campaign  of,  370;  killed  in  battle 
of  Mantinea,  371 ;  estimate  of,  372. 

Ephesus,  Ionian  city,  33 ;  defeat  of 
Athenians  by  Persians  at,  165; 
growth  in  splendor  of,  399 ;  sys- 
tem  of  sanitation  at,    478. 

Ephialtes,  democratic  statesman,  207 ; 
political  reforms  and  assassination 
of,   208. 

Ephors,  in  Spartan  governmental  sys- 
tem,   97,    100. 


INDEX 


507 


Ephorus,  historian,  82,  376  n.,  434. 

ICl)icuius,  philosopher,  system  of,  489- 
490. 

Epic  writings,  Greek,  125;  of  Hel- 
lenistic age,  497-498. 

Epinicnicles,  Cretan  purifier  of  At- 
tica,  111. 

Erasistratus   of   Ceos,    physician,    496. 

Eratosthenes  of  Cyrene,  astronomer, 
494. 

Erechtheum,  completion  of.  348-349 ; 
perfection  of  Ionic  style  expressed 
in,  351. 

Eretria,  coinage  of,  67 ;  example  of 
oligarchy,  76;  taken  by  Persians, 
172. 

Erythrae,  position  of,  in  Athenian 
empire,   240. 

Eteo-Cretans,  32. 

Ethical  truths,    154-155. 

Ethics,  Plato's,  438-439;  politics  a 
division  of,  439;  of  Aristotle,  443; 
in  Stoic  system  of  philosophy,   487. 

Ethnology,    Hellenic,    25-29. 

Ethnos,    institution   called,    69-70. 

Etruscans,  rise  in  power  of,  in  Italy, 
186-187;  combination  of  Cartha- 
ginians and,  187 ;  overthrow  of,  by 
Syracusans,  210-211;  succeeded  by 
Sabellians  as  dominant  power,  316; 
wars  of  Rome  with,   456. 

Euboea,  minerals  of,  4 ;  rise  of  skilled 
industries  in,  58 ;  revolt  of,  against 
Athens,    238-239. 

Euclid,    mathematician,    492. 

Eudoxus,    Pythagorean,    437. 

Eugenics,  among  Greeks,  409 ;  in 
Plato's    Republic,    440. 

Euhemerus  of  Messana,   Sceptic,   489. 

Eupatrids,  class  of,  at  Athens,  105 ; 
position  of,  in  Athenian  democracy 
in  age  of  Pericles,  258-259 ;  main- 
tain their  leadership,  259 ;  lose  hold 
on  government  in  death  of  Pericles, 
307. 

Euphrates  valley,  included  in  Aegean 
region,  1-2;  Roman  empire  ex- 
tended  to,    459. 

Euripides,  quoted,  308 ;  the  Suppliants 
of,  314;  exponent  of  new  human- 
istic spirit  in  Athenian  life,  331- 
332 ;  women  as  depicted  by,  333- 
335 ;  rationalism  in,  337-338 ;  ex- 
pressions of  faith  and  renouncement 
of  radicalism  by,  341 ;  sculptured 
portrait  of,  426. 

Eurotas  river,    88. 

Eurybiades,  at  battle  of  Salamis,  182. 


Eurymedon,   battle  of,    197. 
ICurypontids,      Lacedaemonian      royal 

family,   95. 
Eutychides,  sculptor,  482. 
Evangelus,   slave   of  Pericles,    293. 

Family  life,  among  Homeric  Greeks, 
50-51;  in  Attica,  105-106;  laws 
regarding,  reformed  by  Solon,  112- 
113;  Athenian,  222-223;  as  shown 
by  Sophocles,  286-289;  in  Hellen- 
istic age,  478. 

Farming  in  Greece,  3-4.  See  Agri- 
culture. 

Festivals,  religious,  141,  143;  drama- 
tic, 145 ;  great  national  games  as, 
146,  148;  in  Periclean  age,  294, 
295-296. 

Feudal  estates  in   Asia  Minor,  462. 

Fibula,   introduction  of,   38. 

Five  Hundred,  council  oi,^m  Attica, 
119-120;  in  age  of  Pericles,  249- 
250. 

Fleets.     See   Navy. 

forests  of  Greece,  3. 

Four    Hundred,    council    of,     119-120. 

Four  Hundred  and  One,  council  of, 
108,    113. 

Freedmen,  status  of,  in  Lacedaemon, 
91. 

Frescoes,  mural,  in  Late  Minoan  age, 
13,  14;  at  Cnossus,  17;  by  Poly- 
gnotus,  230. 

Friezes,  of  Mausoleum  at  Halicar- 
nassus,  427-429;  of  Great  Altar  of 
Zeus    at    Pergamum,    479. 

Fruits  of  Greece,  3-4. 

Funeral  Oration  of  Pericles,  293-295, 
305-306. 

Galatia,   kingdom  of,   458. 

Games,  great  national,  146,  148;  in- 
fluence of,  148. 

Gaul,  Greek  colonies  in,  63 ;  Roman 
wars  in,  456. 

Gaza,  captured  by  Alexander,  447. 

Gedrosian  desert,  Alexander's  march 
through,   450-451. 

Gelon,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  178,  188- 
189;  defeat  of  Carthaginians  by, 
189;  war  leadership  of,  in  Sicily, 
208-209 ;  prosperity  and  honored 
end  of,   210. 

Genealogy  of  Greeks,   155-156. 

Generals,  position  of  Athenic^n,  256; 
distinction  between  statesmen  and, 
in   4th   century,    411. 

Gens,   in  Attica,   105-106. 


508 


INDEX 


Geography,  study  of,  152;  advances 
in,    in  Hellenistic   age,   494. 

Geometry,  275;  Euclid's  treatise  on, 
492. 

Geoponica,  agricultural  writings 
495  n. 

Georgi,  class  of,  in  Attica,  105. 

Gergithae,    Milesian    serfs,    158. 

Gerousia,  Lacedaemonian  council  of 
old  men,  95. 

Girls,  training  of  Spartan,  89;  ex- 
posure of  weak,    409. 

Glass  made  at  Alexandria,  464. 

Glaucus  of  Chios,   57. 

God-king  theory,  introduction  of,  in- 
to  Europe,    467-468. 

Gods,  of  Homer,  48 ;  home  of,  on 
Mount  Olympus,  48-49 ;  relations 
with  men,  49 ;  loves  of,  for  mortal 
women,  215,  339;  purity  of,  as  ex- 
pressed by  poets,  226;  belief  of 
Herodotus,  283  ;  views  of  Sophocles, 
284-285 ;  introduction  of  strange, 
from  other  lands,  337;  growth  of 
scepticism  concerning,  337-339; 
shortcomings  of,  339-340;  of  cities, 
482 ;  Stoic  view  of,  488 ;  Sceptic 
teachings  concerning,   489. 

Gold   in   Greece,   4. 

Gorgias,  sophist,  281,  318. 

Gortyn,    Cretan   city,   81. 

Gournia,    excavations   at,    11    n. 

Government,  the  Homeric,  45-48; 
forms  of,  69-80;  Greek  versatility 
in  creation  of  forms  of,  77;  effects 
on,  of  Greek  triumph  over  Persia, 
192 ;  institutions  of,  in  Athenian 
democracy,  248-257;  adjustment  of, 
in  4th  century,  411-412;  in  Alex- 
ander's empire,  461-466;  of  Aeto- 
lian   and    Achaean   leagues,   469. 

Granicus   river,    battle    of,    446,    461. 

Gravitation,    theory    of,    278. 

Grazing  conditions,  in  Greece,  3-4 ; 
in  Hellas  at  close  of  8th  century, 
52-53. 

Greece,  scope  of  term,  1  n.;  conditions 
in,  contrasted  with  other  parts  of 
Aegean  region,  2-3;  account  of 
country  and  people,  3-7;  Minoan 
age,  8-29;  Middle  Age,  a  transi- 
tion period,  31-51  ;  economic  growth 
and  colonial  expansion,  52-68;  early 
forms  of  government,  69-80;  Crete, 
81-83;  Lacedaemon,  84-97;  Pelo- 
ponnesian  league,  97-100;  develop- 
ment and  progress  of  Athens,  102- 
122;    social    and    literary    progress 


(750  to  479),  124-135;  religious, 
moral,  and  scientific  progress,  136- 
157;  history  of  Asiatic  Greeks,  158- 
168;  war  with  Persia,  169-186; 
struggle  between  western,  and  Car- 
thage, 186-189;  age  of  the  war 
heroes,  190-208 ;  events  in  western, 
208-212;  society  and  culture  in  age 
of  war  heroes,  213-227;  progress 
in  fine  arts,  227-233;  Periclean  age, 
234-299 ;  period  of  Peloponnesian 
war,  300  ff. ;  Sicilian  expedition  and 
effects  upon,  316-322;  last  years 
of  Peloponnesian  war,  322-328 ;  cul- 
tural revolution  in,  in  period  from 
431  to  404,  329-351;  Lacedaemonian 
empire,  352-366;  period  of  ascend- 
ancy of  Thebes,  366-373;  western, 
from  413  to  338,  374-380;  condi- 
tions in,  under  Macedonian  suprem- 
acy, 381  ff . ;  analogy  between  his- 
tory of,  and  that  of  modern  states, 
392 ;  economy  and  society  in,  from 
404  to  337,  394-422;  art  in,  in  4th 
century,  423-429 ;  new  develop- 
ments in  literature,  429-437 ;  phi- 
losophy in  4th  century,  437-444; 
period  of  Alexander's  conquests, 
445-456;  in  contact  with  Rome  in 
the  west,  456-457 ;  effect  of  Roman 
conquest,  459-460;  general  decline 
of  (337-30),  473;  culture  in  Hel- 
lenistic  age,    475-498. 

Greeks,  leading  qualities  of,  4,  6-7 ; 
theory   of   origin   of,    155-156. 

Guilds,   the  earliest,    57. 

Gyges,    king    of   Lydia,    158-159. 

Gylippus,    Spartan   general,   394. 

Gymnasiarchia,  one  of  the  liturgies, 
200. 

Hades,    the   Homeric,   49-50. 

Hagia  Triada,  modern  village  of, 
11,   28. 

Halicarnassus,  Dorian  city,  33;  birth- 
place of  Herodotus,  282;  capital  of 
Caria,   399;   Mausoleum  at,  427. 

Halys  river,    159. 

Hamilcar,  Carthaginian  general,  188; 
defeat  of,   at  Himera,    189. 

Hannibal,  Carthaginian  generals 
named,    375,   458. 

Harmodius,  assassin  of  Hipparchus, 
116-117. 

Harpagus,    lieutenant  of   Cyrus,    160. 

Harpalus,  treasurer  of  Alexander,  452 
465-466. 

Hecataeus,    historian   and   geographer. 


INDEX 


509 


156,    164,    281  ;    Herodotus   an    ad- 
vance on,   284. 

Hecatompedos,    Parthenon,    270. 

Hegeniony,    develo])nH'nt    of,    78,    80. 

Heliaca,  popular  supreme  court,  120, 
250. 

Hcllanicus   historian,   432    n. 

Hellas,   scope  of  term,    1   n. 

Hellas,  guide  of  Persian  expedition 
against  Greece,   172. 

Hellen,   ancestor   of  Hellenes,   155. 

Hcllenica,   Xenophon's,   431. 

Hellenistic   culture,    475-498. 

Hellenistic  kingdoms,  454-455,  461- 
475. 

Hellespont,  Ionian  colonies  on  the, 
63-64;  crossed  by  Xerxes,  178,  179; 
crossed  by  Alexander,  446. 

Helots  in  Lacedaemon,  90-91;  policy 
of  degrading,  91 ;  revolt  of,  207- 
208;  settled  by  Athens  at  Naupac- 
tus,  235. 

Hephaestus,  temple  of,  Athens.  267- 
268. 

Hera,  goddess,  41. 

Heracleitus  of  Ephesus,  philosopher, 
276-277. 

Heracles,    Hellenic   hero,   40. 

Hermae,  mutilation  of  the,   319. 

Hermes  of   Praxiteles,   424. 

Herodotus,  quoted  on  tyrants  of 
Corinth,  73 ;  story  of  Cleisthenes 
from,  74-75 ;  on  Athenian  expedi- 
tion against  Persia,  165;  as  an  early 
historian,  281-282;  methods  and  nat- 
ural qualities  of,  282-283;  the 
"Father    of    History,"    283-284. 

Heroes,  worship  of,  74,  137;  creation 
of,  from  victors  in  Persian  wars, 
192-193. 

Herophilus  of  Chalcedon,  physician, 
495-496. 

Hesiod,  the  Works  and  Days  of,  52- 
53,  402;  on  women,  130-131;  a 
scientific  thinker,  150;  followers  of, 
156. 

Hestiasis,  one  of  the  liturgies,   200.     . 

Hieron,    ruler   of    Syracuse,    210-211. 

Hills,  men  of  the,  in  Attica,   114. 

Himera,  Chalcidic  colony,  60 ;  annexed 
to  Acragas,  189;  battle  of,  189; 
taken   by  Carthage,   375. 

Hipparchus,  Athenian  archon  (496), 
166;    ostracism   of,    175. 

Hipparchus,  tyrant  of  Athens,  116;  as- 
sassination of,    116-117. 

Hippeis,  military  class  of,  in  At- 
tica   108. 


PIipi)ias,  tyrant  of  Athens,  116;  de- 
feat and  downfall  of,  117;  intrigues 
of,    with    Persian    rulers,    164. 

Hippocrates   of   ('os,    physician,   276. 

Hipi)odamus,  civil  engineer,  246;  idea 
of  symmetrical  city  first  conceived 
by,  266;  as  a  political  scientist,  281. 

Histiaea,  position  of^  in  Athenian 
empire,    241. 

History,  beginnings  of,  in  Periclean 
age,  281-284;  written  by  Thucy- 
dides,  344-347 ;  writing  of,  in  4th 
century,  430-432 ;  dominated  by 
rhetoric,   435. 

Homer,  life  of  Aeolians  pictured  by, 
42  ff . ;  date  of,  and  other  questions, 
42 ;  account  of,  43 ;  poems  of,  pre- 
served orally,  125 ;  poems  of,  re- 
cited  in   the  Panathenaea,    143. 

Homeridae,    or    rhapsodists,    125. 

Homicide,  trial  and  punishment  of, 
in  Attic  law,   109-110. 

Hoplites,    heavy    infantry,    105. 

Horses  in  Greece,  4. 

Household,  economic  organization  of 
Athenian,  in  4th  century,  407-408. 
See  Family   life. 

Houses,   in  ^linoan   ages,   10,    16. 

Humanists,  the  earliest,  281 ;  Euri- 
pides the  apostle   of,   331-332. 

Hymns   written    by    Callimachus,    497. 

Hyperbolus,  lamp-maker  and  Athe- 
nian   leader,   ostracised,   314-315. 

Hypereides,    Athenian   orator,   453. 

Hysiae,    battle    of,    98. 

Iambic,   first  master  of,    127. 

Iberia    (Spain),   voyages  to,   63. 

Ictinus,    architect   of    Parthenon,    268. 

Ideographs,   found  at  Cnossus,    13. 

Idylls   of   Theocritus,    482,    497. 

Iliad,  questions  concerning,  42 ;  com- 
position of,  43;  character  of,  125. 

Illegality,    writs    against,    254. 

Immigrants    in    Athens,    262-263. 

India,  Alexander's  expedition  to,  450- 
451. 

Individualism,  growth  of,  amid  Peri- 
clean culture,  329-330 ;  growth  of, 
in  4th  century,  411;  in  art  in  4th 
century,  423 ;  displayed  in  portrait 
sculpture,    426-427. 

Indus  river,  Alexander  on  the,  450. 

Industries,  rise  of  skilled,  in  Hellas, 
55,  57;  Lydian,  Ionian,  and  Lesbian, 
57-58;  of  Aegina,  Calchis,  and 
Corinth,  58;  of  Megara,  58-59; 
Athenian,  in  4th  century,  404-405. 


510 


INDEX 


Inheritance,   laws  of,   in   Athens,   409. 

Ion,   poet   of   Chios,   216. 

Ionia,  settlement  of,  i2 ;  development 
of  industries  in,  57;  colonization  and 
culture  of,  32-33 ;  coinage  of,  67 ; 
intellectual  life  of,  125-128;  women 
of,  130-131.  See  also  Asiatic 
Greeks. 

Ionic    frieze,    Parthenon,    272,    273. 

Ionic   school   of  philosophy,    152. 

Iphicrates,   Athenian  commander,  358. 

Ipsus,    battle   of,   454. 

Iron,  rise  of  industry  in  14th  and  13th 
centuries,  38;  discovery  of  process 
for  welding,  57;  money  of,  in  Sparta, 
87.     Sec    Mining    and    minerals. 

Isaeus,   orations  of,   432-433. 

Isagoras,  Athenian  politician,  117- 
118. 

Islands  of  the  Blest,    144,    155. 

Isocrates,  quoted,  263,  359 ;  broad 
vision  and  liberal  mind  of,  373 ; 
on  condition  of  Asiatic  Greeks, 
399;  the  first  Hellenic  biographer, 
430;  account  of  life  and  works  of, 
433-434;   wide   influence  of,  434. 

Issus,  battle  of,  446-447. 

Italy,  early  Cretan  colonies  in,  28 ; 
colonies  founded  in  (750-550),  59- 
60 ;  economic  and  intellectual  prog- 
ress of  colonists,  186;  aristocracy 
and  tyranny  in,  186;  rise  of  Etrus- 
can power,  186-187;  progress  of 
western  Greeks  in  (480-461),  208- 
212;  democratic  wave  in,  211; 
power  of  Dionysius  of  Syracuse  in, 
377-378;  during  period  of  Alexan- 
der, 454-456;  growing  power  of 
Rome  in,  456-457.  See  Rome  and 
Sicily. 

Ithome,  Mount,  85 ;  seized  by  insur- 
gent helots,  207 ;  city  of  Messene 
founded    on,    368. 

Javan,   Semitic  name  of  Hellenes,  2>i. 
Judicial   system,    Athenian,    in   age   of 

Pericles,  248-257. 
Jury    system,    Athenian,    251-253. 

Kamares  type  of  pottery,    11,   12. 
"King's  Eye,"  Persian  officer,  161. 
King's  Porch  in   Agora,   Athens,  228. 
Kings,  position  of,  in  Homeric  account, 

45 ;    in   Sparta,   95. 
Knights,  comedy  by  Aristophanes,  310, 

338,  418. 
Knowledge,     Protagorean     theory     of, 

280;  division  of,    by  Aristotle.  442: 


critical,  in  Hellenistic  age,  491-492 

Laboring  conditions,  in  Babylonia  and 
Egypt,  2 ;  in  Athens  in  4th  century, 
405-406;  in  Alexander's  empire, 
470-472. 

Lacedaemon,  account  of,  under  Spar- 
tan supremacy,  84-97 ;  wins  head- 
ship of  Arcadia,  98-99;  league 
of  Peloponnesian  states  with,  99- 
100;  athletic  and  musical  compe- 
titions at,  146;  condition  of,  at 
conclusion  of  Persian  wars,  193 ; 
area  and  population  of,  193  n. ; 
transfer  of  naval  leadership  to 
Athens,  195 ;  quarrel  between 
Athens  and,  208;  Athens  and  the 
coalition  against,  356;  war  with 
Persia  (beginning  in  400),  355- 
359 ;  effects  of  Peloponnesian  war 
on,    394-397. 

Lacedaemonian  empire,  period  of 
the.    352-366. 

Laconia,  use  of  iron  in,  38 ;  political 
unification  of,  84;  culture  in  7th 
century,  84-85 ;  wars  with  Mes- 
senia,   85-86. 

Lade,    defeat  of   Greeks   at,    166. 

Lamachus,  Athenian  commander,  318, 
320. 

Lamian  war,  453. 

Language  of  Minoan  age,  25. 

Laocoon,  statue,  481. 

Latins,  friendly  to  Hellenes,  211. 

Latin   wars  of  Rome,   456. 

Laurium,  mines  of,  4,   177,  306,  404. 

Laws,  in  early  city-states,  71 ;  codifi- 
cations of,  71-72;  in  Crete,  83; 
Draco's  codification,  109;  reforms  of 
Solon  at  Athens,  111-114;  Cleisthe- 
nes'  reforms,  118-122;  improvements 
in  domestic  and  interstate,  154; 
Athenian,  at  time  of  Pericles,  241, 
251-254;  at  Thurii,  246;  contrasted 
with  decrees,  254. 

Leagues,  political,  77-78. 

Lechaeum,  battle  of,  358. 

Lenaea,   festival  of  the,   145. 

Leon,   Athenian  leader,   369. 

Leonidas,  Spartan  king  and  com- 
mander at  Thermopylae,  180. 

Leosthenes,   Athenian  general,  453. 

Leotychidas,  king  of  Sparta,   184. 

Lesbos,  settlement  of,  by  Aeolians,  42 ; 
a  poet  of,  128-130;  revolt  of  (428), 
307.  309. 

Leucippus,   philosopher,   278. 


INDEX 


511 


Leucon,  king  of  Tauric  Chersonese, 
403. 

Leuctra,  battle  of,  366. 

Libraries,  founded  in  Hellenistic  age, 
4'K)-491. 

Literature,  from  750  to  479,  124-135; 
women  in,  130-134;  first  philosophic 
and  scientific,  152;  beginnings  of 
historical  and  geographical,  156-157; 
effects  upon,  of  Greek  triumph 
over  Persia,  191-192;  development 
and  changes  in  (period  431-404), 
329-351 ;  developments  in,  in  4th 
century,  429-437 ;  of  Hellenistic  age, 
496-498.     See  also  Poetry. 

I-iturgies,  public  services  called,  200. 

Locographi,  writers  of  prose,  156. 

Locri,  colony  of,  61 ;  code  of  law  pro- 
duced at,  71-72;  aristocratic  govern- 
ment of,  211;  Roman  alliance  of, 
457. 

Locris,  alliance  of  Athens  with,  236; 
loss  of,  to  Athens,   238. 

Logic,  in  Stoic  system  of  philosophy, 
486-487. 

Logos  of  Heracleitus,  277. 

Long  Walls  at  Athens,  235 ;  destruc- 
tion of,  327 ;  rebuilding  of,  358. 

Lucanians  in  Italy,  317,  398, 

Lyceum,    Aristotle's  .school,   441. 

Lycosura,  shrine  of  Zeus  at,  98. 

Lyctus,  society  in,  81-82. 

Lydia,  industries  of,  57;  growth  of, 
158-159;  made  a  part  of  Persian 
empire.   160. 

Lyrics,  choral,  134-135;  decline  of, 
429 

Lyrists,  Pindar  most  famous  of,  214. 

Lysander,  Lacedaemonian  commander, 
325-326;  early  life,  character,  and 
career  of,  352-353 ;  policy  of,  of 
establishing  decarchies  in  Aegean 
cities,  353 ;  rule  of  the  Thirty  at 
Athens  originated  by,  353 ;  retires 
into  exile,  354. 

Lysias,  orations  of,  432. 

Lysimachus.  ruler  in  Thrace  and  Asia 
IVIinor,  454. 

Lysippus  of  Sicyon,  sculptor,  425-426. 

Lysistrata  of  Aristophanes,  335. 

Macedon,  Persian  conquest  of,  170; 
power  of  Thebes  over,  368 ;  rise  of, 
to  ascendancy,  381  ff . ;  country  and 
people  of,  381-382;  early  political 
condition  and  history,  382-383 ; 
kingdom  of,  after  Alexander's  death. 


454;     preeminence    of,    as    military 
power,  458;   conquest  of,   by  Kome, 
459. 
Macedonia,  Roman  province  of,  459. 
Macedonian  war.   First,  458-459;  Sec- 
ond and  Third,  459. 
Magistrates,  Athenian,  in  age  of  Peri- 
cles, 255-256. 
Magna   Grace ia,   in   4th  century,   398. 
Magnesia,  battle  of,  459. 
Mago,   Carthaginian  general,   188. 
]\Laidcn  statues,  140. 
Maid  of  Antium,  statue,  480. 
Malea,  Cape,  58. 
Mantinea,    Athenian    victory    at,    314; 

battle  of,  371. 
Mantineia,   Arcadian  city-state,  98. 
Manufacturing,  rise  of,   in  Hellas,  55, 

57;   Attic,  in  4th  century,  404-405. 
Marathon,    battle    of,    173;    effects    of 

victory  at,   173-174. 
Marble,   in  Greece,  4 ;   first  use  of,   in 
architecture  at  Athens,   139;   Parian 
and    Pentelic,    139;    first    used    for 
statues,    140;    Athenian  trade   in,   in 
4th  century,  404, 
Mardonius,    expedition    of,    170;    with 
Xerxes    in    Greek    expedition,     178, 
184;  defeat  and  death  of,  at  Plataea, 
185. 
Market-place    (Agora),    Athens,    121, 

228,  230. 
Marriage,  customs  of,  in  Crete,  82-83; 
in  Sparta,  89 ;  ties  of,  in  Sophocles, 
286;   law  against  unseemly,  395;   in 
Athens  in  4th  century,  409. 
Massalia     (Marseilles),    founding    of, 

63. 
Mathematics,  study  of,  275,  492. 
^lausoleum  at  Halicarnassus,  427. 
Mausolus,   tomb  of,  427. 
Medea,  painting  of,  483. 
!Medes,  empire  of,  160. 
Medicine,  Greek  progress  in,  276;  ad- 
vances  in,    in   Hellenistic   age,   495- 
496. 
Medontidae,  last  ruling  Attic  dynasty, 

103. 
Megabazus,    general   of  Darius,    162, 
Megacles,  Archon  of  Athens,  109 ;  os- 
tracism of,  175. 
Megara,    manufacturing   industries  of, 
58-59;    war    of    Athens    with,    114; 
\'egetables  from,  imported  to  Athens, 
201;   alliance  of,   with   Athens,  234; 
return   of,    to  Peloponnesian  league, 
238-239;   Athenian  designs  upon,   a- 


512 


INDEX 


cause    of    Peloponnesian    war,    302. 

Megaris,  Athenian  protectorate  over, 
234,  235. 

Melanippus,  Theban  hero,  74. 

Meleager  of  Scopas,   425. 

Melos,  centre  of  cuhure  in  Early  Mi- 
noan  age,  10;  massacre  of  inhabit- 
ants of   (416),   315. 

Messene,  city  of,  60,  188,  368;  de- 
stroyed  by   Carthaginians,   377. 

Messenia,  conquered  by  Laconians,  86; 
liberation  of,  from  Spartan  control, 
368. 

Messenian  wars,  85,  207-208. 

Metics,  aHen  residents  in  Athens,  262- 
263. 

Melon  of  Athens,  astronomer,  276. 

Metopes,  of  temples,  139;  of  temple  of 
Hephaestus,  268;  of  Parthenon,  270- 
271. 

Metroon,   shrine  of  Cybele,   337. 

Miletus,  Ionian  city,  33,  57,  63,  159; 
alliance  with  Persian  empire,  161 ; 
siege  and  fall  of,    166. 

Miltiades,   Athenian  colonizer,   116. 

Miltiades,  Athenian  general,  171;  pre- 
vious career  of,  171-172;  commands 
victorious  Athenians  at  Marathon, 
173;  end  of,   174. 

Mindarus,  Spartan  commander,  324. 

Mining  and  minerals,  in  Greece,  4 ; 
at  Melos,  10;  in  Spain,  63;  at  Lau- 
rium,  177,  307,  404;  at  Mount  Pan- 
gaeus,  383. 

Minoan  age,  account  of,  8  ff. ;  named 
for  IVIinos,  9 ;  divisions  of,  9 ; 
Early,  9-11;  Middle,  or  First 
Bronze,  11-13;  Late,  or  Mycenaean, 
13-15. 

Minoan  colonies,  59. 

Minos,  9 ;  worshipped  in  form  of  bull, 
21. 

Minotaur,   myth   of  the,   23-24. 

Minstrels,  Achaean,  42;  Greek,  125. 

Mnasidica,  pupil  of  Sappho,   133-134. 

Mochlos,  excavations  at,   11  n. 

Monarchy,  early  Greek  form  of 
government,  70-71  ;  transition  from, 
to  aristocracy,   71,   103-104. 

Money,  use  of  iron  as,  38. 

Mora,  the  Spartan,  94-95. 

Morals,  of  Homeric  Greeks,  50 ;  ad- 
vance in,  154;  in  Periclean  age,  296- 
297. 

Mortgages,  Attic,   in  4th  century,  402. 

Mosaics  of  Hellenistic  age,   483. 


Munychia,  Macedonian  garrison  in, 
453. 

Murder,  legal  provisions  regarding,  in 
Athens,   109-110, 

Mu.seum  of  Alexandria,  491. 

Music,  in  Minoan  age,  24 ;  sensitive- 
ness of  Greeks  to,  84 ;  use  of,  in 
Sparta,  84 ;  education  in,  in  Peri- 
clean age,  295 ;  period  of  deteriora- 
tion in,  331. 

Mycale,  battle  of,  186. 

Mycenae,  life  at,  in  Middle  Minoan 
age,  15;  progress  in  culture  at,  15; 
city  walls  at,  21;  beehive  tombs  at, 
22-23. 

INIycenaean  age,  9,   13-15. 

Myron  of  Athens,  sculptor,  232-233; 
reminders  of,  in  metopes  of  Parthe- 
non, 270. 

Myrsilus,   adversary  of  Alcaeus,    128. 

Myths,  of  Minoan  age,  26;  original 
and  derived  meaning  of,  137 ;  ad- 
vance from,  to  science  and  philos- 
ophy, 150-152;  treatment  of,  by  Eu- 
ripides, 337 ;  treatment  of,  by  Stoics, 
488 ;  Sceptic  teachings  concerning, 
489. 

Mytilene,  Lesbian  city,  42 ;  industries 
of,  57 ;  intellectual  and  social  life 
at,   128. 

Naples,  alliance  of,  with  Rome,  456. 

Nature,  convention  vs.,  in  theory  of 
Sophists,  281. 

Nature  study,  Aristotle's,  442-443. 

Naucraries,  naval  townships,  106;  su- 
perseded by  demes,   118. 

Naucratis,  settlement  and  growth  of, 
64 ;  people  of,  464. 

Naupactus,  settlement  of  helots  at, 
235. 

Navy,  building  up  of  Athenian,  by 
Themistocles,  177-178;  of  Xerxes,  in 
expedition  against  Greece,  179;  of 
Greeks  and  of  Persians  at  battle  of 
Salamis,  182;  leadership  of  Athens 
in,  195 ;  upkeep  of,  by  Athenians, 
199;  Athenian,  in  Sicilian  expedi- 
tion, 318-319;  of  Greek  forces  in 
battle  of  Arginusae,  326;  end  of 
Athenian,  at  Aegospotami,  326-327; 
Theban,  370;  of  Dionysius  of  Syra- 
cu.se,  377. 

Naxos,  island  of,  164;  revolt  of,  and 
loss  of  freedom,  202-203 ;  colony  es- 
tablished in,  243. 

Neapolis,  settlement  of,  60. 


INDEX 


513 


Nearchus,   Alexander's  admiral,   451. 

Neniea,   festivals  at,   146. 

Neocles,  father  of  Theiiiistocles,  167. 

Neolithic  age,  8-9 ;  dates  of,  9  n. 

Nicias,  slaves  owned  by,  264;  peace 
of  (421),  311;  opponent  of  Alci- 
biades,  314-315;  opposes  Sicilian 
expedition,  318;  poor  showing  of,  in 
Sicilian  exi)edition,  320;  captured 
and  put  to  death  by  Syracusans,  321. 

Nike  of  Samothrace,  statue,  481. 

Nike  temple,   balustrade  of,  348. 

N  ile  valley  included  in  Aegean  region, 
1-2. 

Nineveh,    fall   of,    160. 

Nobles,  council  of,  at  Athens,   105. 

Nome,  class  of  lyric  called,  429  n. 

Nomothetae,  Athenian  legislators,  253. 

Notium,  battle  off,  325-326. 

Obols,  coins  of  iron,  67. 
Obsidian,   from  Melos,   10. 
Odeum,  building  of  the,  267. 
Odyssey,     questions     concerning,     42 ; 

composing  of,  43;  character  of,  125. 
Oenophyta,  battle  of,  236. 
Oil,   export  trade  in,   of  Athenians  in 

4th  century,  404. 
Old     Oligarch,     writer     called,     258; 

quoted  on  slaves,  264. 
Oligarchy,  rule  by,  76;  of  Four  Hun- 
dred   at     Athens     (411),     323-324; 

government  by,  in  4th  century,  412- 

413. 
Olive    industry,    restoration    of,    after 

Persian   invasion,   200-201. 
Olives  in  Greece,  4. 
Oiympia,  temple  to  Zeus  at,  231. 
Olympias,  mother  of  Alexander,  445. 
Olympic  games,  146,  148. 
Olympus,    ISIount,    home   of  the   gods, 

42,  48-49. 
Olynthiac    Orations    of    Demosthenes, 

385-386. 
Olynthian    confederacy,    conquered    by 

Philip  of  Macedon,  385-386. 
Olynthus,    leading   city   in    Chalcidice, 

360. 
Dnomacritus,  prophet  of  Orphism,  144. 
Oracles,    148-149;    growth    of    scepti- 
cism concerning,   339. 
Orators    and    orations,    292-293,    347, 

437. 
Orchomenus,    Arcadian    city-state,    15, 

98;  harsh  treatment  of,  by  Thebans, 

370. 


Orgathoridae,  tyrants  of  Sicyon,  73- 
75. 

Orphism,  form  of  vvorsiiip,   143-144. 

Orphists,  Plato's  doctrine  taken  from, 
439. 

Ortygia,  temple  of  Athena  at,  2U9 ; 
Dionysius's  stronghold  on,   376. 

Ostracism,  institution  of,  121  ;  ex- 
amples of  practice  of,  175,  177;  of 
Aristeides  and  Themistocles,  205, 
206;  last  case  of,  315. 

Pages,  Alexander's,  450. 

Painted  Porch,  Agora,  Athens,  228; 
meeting-place  of  Stoic  school,  486. 

Painting  in  Hellenistic  age,  482-483. 

Palaces,  of  Early  Minoan  age,  10;  at 
Cnossus  and  Phaestus,  13;  of  king 
of  Cnossus,  16-17,  27;  destruction 
of  Cnossian,  28. 

Palaikastro,  excavations  at,  11  n. 

Palladion,  shrine  at  Phaleron,   110. 

Panathenaea,  festival  of  the,   141,  143. 

Panegyricus  of  Isocrates  433. 

Pangaeus,  Mount,  gold  mines  of,  63, 
360 ;  seized  by  Philip  of  Macedon, 
383. 

Panionion,   shrine  of  the,    159,    160. 

Papyrus,  imported  from  Egypt,  64, 
404. 

Parents,  respect  for,  in  Sophocles,  288. 
See  Family  life. 

Parmenion,  Macedonian  general.  445 ; 
put  to  death  by  Alexander,  449. 

Paros,  marble  of,  4,  139;  expedition 
led   by  Miltiades  against   174. 

Parthenia  of  Alcman,  135. 

Parthenon,  the,  268;  description  of, 
268-273 ;  Nike  sculptures  contrasted 
with  art  of,  348. 

Parthenon,  the  older,  139. 

Pasion,  Athenian  banker,  406. 

Patriotism,  Pericles'  ideal  of,  299. 

Pausanias,  commander  at  Plataea,  185; 
Spmrtan  regent,  195 ;  plottings  of, 
against  Athens,  205;  flight  and  death 
of,  206. 

Pediments  of  Parthenon,  271-272. 

Peiraeus,  improvement  of,  by  Themis- 
tocles, 167-168;  building  and  forti- 
fication of  (478),  198-199;  a  flour- 
ishing centre  of  industry  and  com- 
merce, 200 ;  reconstruction  of,  as  a 
symmetrical  city,  266;  destruction  of 
fortifications  of,  327;  rebuilding  of 
fortifications  (394),  358;  trade  cen- 
tring at,   403-404;   decline  of,   with 


514 


INDEX 


growth  of  Rhodes  and   Alexandria, 
473. 

Peisander,  Athenian  politician,  323, 
324. 

Peisistratus,  leadership  of,  at  Athens, 
114-115;  becomes  tyrant,  115-116; 
advance  in  art  under,  139. 

Pella,   capital   of  Macedon,   360. 

Pelopidas,   Theban  leader,  368,  370. 

Peloponnese,  war  between  Second 
Athenian  Confederacy  and,  362-363. 

Peloponnesian  league,  75 ;  states  in- 
cluded in,  98-100;  organization  of, 
100;  joined  by  Athens,  171;  over- 
coming of,  by  Athens,  235-236;  dis- 
solution of,  313. 

Peloponnesian  war  (from  431  to  415), 
301-315;  last  years  of,  322-328; 
economic  and  social  conditions  as 
affected  by,  394-410. 

Peltasts,    soldiers   called,    358   n. 

Penestae,  Thessalia  x  serfs,   400 

Pentacosiomedimni,  class  of,    106. 

Pentathlon,  contest  of  the,  146. 

Pentelicus,  marble  of,  4,  139. 

Peplos,  the  Doric,    132. 

Perdiccas,  general  of  Alexander,  be- 
comes regent  of  Persian  empire,  453- 
454. 

Perdiccas  of  Macedon,  son  of  Amyn- 
tas,  382. 

Pergamum,  monarchy  of,  458,  459 ; 
Great  Altar  of  Zeus  at,  476,  477; 
library  at,  491;  school  of  science  at, 
492. 

Periander,  tyrant  of  Corinth,   73,   145. 

Pericles,  Athenian  statesman,  207,  213; 
contest  between  Cimon  and,  208 ; 
hard  masculine  age  of,  222 ;  com- 
pletes change  of  Athens  from  con- 
federacy to  empire,  239-244 ;  agita- 
tion of  anti-imperialists  against,  244; 
Athenian  democracy  in  age  of,  248- 
257;  society  and  public  works  in 
age  of,  258-273;  Greek  thought,  cul- 
ture, and  character,  275-299;  per- 
sonality of,  292  ff . ;  education,  es- 
tate, and  family  of,  292-293; 
Funeral  Oration  by,  293-295,  305- 
306;  as  interpreter  of  his  age,  293- 
295 ;  attacks  on  friends  and  helpers 
of,  303-304 ;  plans  of,  for  conducting 
Peloponnesian  war,  304-305 ;  last 
days  and  death  of,  306-307 ;  sum- 
mary of  culture  of,  329. 

Pericles,  son  of  Pericles  and  A.spasia, 
293,  326. 


Perioeci,  in  Crete,  82 ;  condition  of, 
in  Sparta,  92-94. 

Peripatetic  school  of  philosophy,  441. 

Peisepolis,  occupied  by  Alexander, 
448;    destruction  of  palace   at,   4^18. 

Persian  empire,  rise  of,  160;  place  of 
Greeks  in,  161-162;  war  between 
Greece  and,  169-186;  peace  be- 
tween Athens  and  (448),  238;  war 
between  Lacedaemon  and  (beginning 
in  400),  355-359;  recognition  of 
Theban  hegemony  by,  369 ;  designs 
of  Philip  of  Macedon  upon,  388, 
391 ;  Alexander  plans  to  conquer, 
446-447 ;  conquest  and  solidification 
of,  by  Alexander,  448-449 ;  events 
in,  following  Alexander's  death,  453- 
454 ;  satrapies  in,  under  Alexander, 
465. 

Persian  gulf,  surveyed  by  Nearchus, 
451. 

Pestilence   in  Athens    (430),  306. 

Phaestus,  seat  of  culture  in  Middle 
Minoan  age,  11. 

Phalanx,  the  Spartan,  94;  the  Dorian, 
introduced    into    Attica,     106,     108 
commander   of.    and   divisions,    108 
tactics  of,  at  IMarathon  and  Plataea, 
173,   185;  the  Macedonian,  383. 

Phaleric  wall,  235  n. 

Pharnabazus,  Persian  satrap,  325. 

Pharos,  Colossus  of  Rhodes  on,  477, 
482. 

Pheidias,  sculptor,  228 ;  Parthenon 
sculptures  by,  268 ;  statue  of  Athena 
Parthenos  by,  272-273;  prosecution 
and  death  of,  303 ;  work  of,  con- 
trasted with  that  of  Praxiteles  and 
Scopas,  423-424. 

Pheidippides,  Athenian  messenger,  172- 
173. 

Pheidon,   king  of  Argolis,  97-98. 

Pherae,  attempt  to  liberate  serfs  at, 
400. 

Philip  of  Macedon,  382;  education  and 
early  career  of,  383-384;  war  with 
Athens,  384-387;  devastation  of  Pho- 
cis  by,  387-388 ;  in  Epirus  and  Pelo- 
ponnese, 389  ;  defeat  of  new  Hellenic 
federation  by,  389-390;  treatment  of 
Thebes  and  of  Athens,  390 ;  reor- 
ganization of  Hellas  by,  390-391 ; 
unification  of  eastern  Hellas  by,  391 ; 
assassination  of,  445. 

Philip,  Macedonian  leader  against 
Rome,  458-459;  defeat  of,  at  Cy- 
noscephalae,  459. 

Philippics  of  Demosthenes,  385-386. 


INDEX 


515 


Philistines,  appearance  of,  28. 

Philistus,  historian,  376  n. 

Philocrates,  treaty  of,  387. 

Philosophy,  first  steps  in,  150-152 ;  in 
Periclean  age,  276-281  ;  as  expressed 
by  dramatists,  337-340;  of  Socrates, 
342-343 ;  in  4th  century,  437-444 ;  in 
Hellenistic  age,  485-490. 

Philotas,  alleged  conspirator  against 
Alexander,  449. 

Phocaea,  Ionian  city,  33. 

Phocaeans,  colonies  of,  63 ;  colony  in 
Corsica  founded  by,  160-161;  driven 
from  Corsica  (540),  187-188. 

Phocis,  alliance  of  Athens  with,  236; 
loss  of,  by  Athens,  238 ;  conquest  of, 
by  Philip  of  Macedon,  387-388. 

Phoenicians,  early  progress  in  culture 
of,  35 ;  colonies  of,  in  Sicily,  62 ; 
progress  and  spread  of  power  of, 
187.     See  Carthage. 

Phratries  in  Attica,  106;  retained  in 
democratic  organization,    119. 

Phrynichus,  Athenian  dramatist,  167. 

Phylae,  tribes,  in  Attica,  119. 

Physicians  of  Hellenistic  age,  495-496. 

Physics,  in  Stoic  system  of  phlosophy, 
487;  study  of,  492. 

Pictographs,  first  use  of,  10-11;  found 
at  Cnossus  and  Phaestus,  13;  super- 
seded by  linear  script,  13. 

Pillars  of  Heracles,  63. 

Pindar,  choral  lyrist,  72,  135,  210,  211; 
rank  of,  as  lyrist,  214;  glorification 
of  aristocracy  by,  215;  women  in 
lyrics  of,  219-220;  poetry  and 
thought  of  Aeschylus  and,  226-227. 

Pithecussae,  island  of,  59-60. 

Pittacus,  dictator  of  Mytilene,  129. 

Plague  in  Athens,  during  Pelopon- 
nesian  war,  306,  307. 

Plain,  men  of  the,  in  Attica,  114. 

Plataea,  battle  of,  185. 

Plato,  quoted  on  colonies,  66;  the 
Republic  of,  334,  439-440;  influence 
of  Socrates  on,  343;  dealings  with 
Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  379 ;  view 
taken  by,  of  Spartan  citizens,  396; 
opinion  of  women,  408 ;  rank  and 
early  career  of,  437;  school  of,  437- 
438;  Dialogues  of,  437-438;  ethics 
of,  438-439;   followers  of,  441. 

Plutarch,  quoted  on  Themistocles.  200- 
201. 

Pnyx  at  Athens,  107,  121. 

Poetics,    Aristotle's,   442. 

Poetry,  from  750  to  479,  124-135;  lyric 
and  dramatic,  in  age  of  war  heroes 


(479-461),  214-227;  Pindar's  esti- 
mate of,  227  ;  the  change  to  prose, 
429;  in  Hellenistic  age,  497. 

Poets,  the  most  famous,  214-215;  Pin- 
dar and  Aeschylus,  226-227. 

Polemarch,  Athenian  officer,   104,   108. 

Police,  Athenian,  Scythian  archers  as, 
264. 

Political  science,  early  steps  in,  281. 

Politics  of  ArLstotle,  443-444. 

Polycleitus,  sculptor,  347-348;  work  of 
Lysippus  and,  contrasted,  426. 

Polygnotus,  painter,  220,  230. 

Pompeii,  wall  paintings  of,  483 ;  mo- 
saics at,  483. 

Pontus,  importation  of  grain  from,  195. 

Poor,  methods  of  caring  for,  417. 

Popular  assembly,  Athens,  248-249. 

Porch  of  the  Maidens,  349. 

Portraits  of  Hellenistic  age,  483. 

Portrait  sculpture,  426;  on  coins,  427; 
at  Pergamum,  480. 

Poseidon,  temple  to,  at  Poseidonia,  61. 

Poseidonia,  Achaean  colony,  61 ;  con- 
quered by  Sabellians,  316. 

Pottery,  of  Early  Minoan  age,  9-10; 
Kamares  type  of,  11,  12;  of  Middle 
Minoan  age,  11-13;  Mycenaean,  30. 
See  also  Vases. 

Praxiergidae,  57. 

Praxiteles,  sculptor,  work  of,  424-425. 

Priene,  city  of,  475 ;  water  supply  and 
sanitation  in,  477. 

Priests,   Homeric,  49. 

Probouli,  board  of,  322. 

Prometheus,  Greek  progenitor,  155. 

Property,  confiscated,  418.  See  In- 
heritance. 

Propontis,  Ionian  colonies  on  the,  63- 
64. 

Prose,  change  from  poetry  to,  in  4th 
/Century  period,  429;  three  great  de- 
'  partments  of,  430. 

Protagoras,  sophist,  246,  279-280;  Eu- 
ripides the  interpreter  of,  332. 

Proverbs,  ethical,  154-155. 

Prytaneis,  office  of,  120. 

Prytany,  defined,   120. 

Psammetichus,  conqueror  of  Egypt,  64. 

Psychology,  beginnings  of,  280. 

Ptolemaic  system,  discovery  of,  494. 

Ptolemais,  people  of,  464-465. 

Ptolemy,  governor  and  ruler  of  Egypt, 
454 ;  end  of  dynasty  founded  by,  459. 

Ptolemy,  Claudius,  scientist,  494. 

Public  works,  labor  in,  in  Periclean 
Athens,  266;  description  of,  266-273. 

Punic  wars,  457. 


516 


INDEX 


Pydna,  battle  of,  459. 
Pylos,  Athenian  victory  at,  309. 
Pyrrhic  war-dance,  83,  84. 
Pyrrhus,  wars  of,  in  Italy,  457. 
Pythagoras,   philosophy  of,   152-153. 
Pj'thagorean  fraternities  in  Italy,  211. 
Pythia,    prophetess  of   Apollo,    149. 
Pythian   games,    146,    388. 

Quarries,  4;  obsidian,  at  Melos,  10; 
marble,    139,   404. 

Rationalism,  growth  of,  at  Athens, 
337-338. 

Recall,  use  of,  at  Athens,  348. 

Religion,  in  Minoan  age,  21-23;  char- 
acter of  Minoan,  23;  changes  in, 
during  Ionian  period,  39-41  ;  of 
Homer,  48-50;  leagues  of  neighbors 
based  upon,  77-78;  origins  of,  136- 
137;  expression  of,  in  temples,  137- 
139;  in  statues,  139-141;  change 
from  formal  to  emotional,  143;  wor- 
ship of  Dionysius,  143;  .Orphism, 
143-144;  Eleusinian  mysteries,  144- 
145;  use  of  divination,  148;  oracles, 
148-149;  cosmogony,  150;  advance 
in  thought  to  science  and  philosophy, 
150-153;  effects  upon,  of  outcome 
of  war  with  Persia,  191-192;  at 
Athens  at  time  of  Pindar  and 
Aeschylus,  225-227;  belief  of  Hero- 
dotus, 283 ;  ideas  of,  as  expressed 
by  Sophocles,  284-286;  introduction 
of  alien  cults  at  Athens,  337;  scep- 
ticism concerning,  337-340;  question 
of  a  future  life,  340;  of  Socrates, 
341 ;  reaction  toward,  341 ;  Stoicism 
as  a,  487-488. 

Republic,  Plato's,  439-440. 

Rhaposdists,  singers  called,  125. 

Rhea,  worship  of,  21. 

Rhegium,  Chalcidic  colony,  60 ;  govern- 
ment of,  a  tyranny,  211;  Roman  al- 
liance of,  457. 

Rhetoric,  art  of,  in  Periclean  time,  279- 
280;  growth  and  influence  of,  in  4th 
century,  432-433;  historical  field  do- 
minated by,  435. 

Rhodes,  growth  and  power  of,  462; 
school  of  sculptors  of,  481-482;  Col- 
ossus of,  482. 

Roads,  in  Persian  empire,  161. 

Rome,  rise  of,  to  power,  456;  suprem- 
acy of,  in  Italy,  456-457;  war  with 
Pyrrhus,  457;  defeat  of  Pyrrhus  and 
of  Carthaginians  by,  457;  First 
Macedonian  war,  458-459 ;  conquests 


of,  in  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  and 
effects  on  civilization,  459-460. 
Roxana,  wife  of  Alexander,  453,  466. 

Sabellians,  succeed  Etruscans  as  do- 
minant power  in  Italy,  316;  con- 
quests of,  316-317. 

Sacred  war,  386-387. 

Salamis,  acquisition  of,  by  Attica  un- 
der Solon,  103,  111;  battle  between 
Hellenic  force  and  Xerxes'  fleet  at, 
182-184. 

Samnite  wars  of  Rome,  456. 

Samos,  revolt  of,  245. 

Samothrace,  Nike  of,  481. 

Sanitation,  city,  477-478. 

Sappho,  poetess,  132-134. 

Sardinia,  Phoenicians  in,  187. 

Sardis,  capital  of  Lydia,  160,  161; 
burning  of,  by  Athenians,   165. 

Satrapies  provinces,  159;  Persian  em- 
pire divided  into,  161 ;  in  Alexan- 
der's empire,  465. 

Sceptics,  philosophic  school,  489. 

Science,  first  progress  in,  150-151 ;  in 
Periclean  Athens,  275-276;  begin- 
nings of  political  and  social,  280- 
281  ;  in  Hellenistic  age,  490-496. 

Scientific  farming  in  4th  century,  402- 
403. 

Scopas,    sculptor,    work    of,    425. 

Sculpture,  evolution  of,  139-141;  of 
age  of  war  heroes,  231-233;  works 
on,  275;  increase  in  realism  in,  426- 
427. 

Sculptures,  on  Odeum  and  temple  of 
Hephaestus,  267-268;  on  Parthenon, 
268-271;  interpretation  of  Parthe- 
non, 271;  of  Praxiteles,  424-425;  of 
Scopas,  425;  of  Lysippus,  425-426; 
at  Pergamum,  478-480;  die  Dying 
Gaul,  479;  Aphrodite  of  Melos  and 
the  Maid  of  Antiun.,  480-481 ;  Nike 
of  Samothrace,  481;  the  Laocoon, 
481. 

Scyros,    burial  place  of  Theseus,  231. 

Scythia,  invasion  of,  by  Darius,   162. 

Second  Athenian  Confederacy,  361-362. 

Seers,   Homeric,   49. 

Seleucia,  city  on  Tigris,  463,  464. 

Selcucidae,  kingdom  of  the,  454;  down- 
fall of,  457-458;  conquest  of,  by 
Rome,  459;  end  of,  459;  plan  of 
colonization  of,  463. 

Seleucus,  ruler  in  Asia  Minor,  454. 

Selinus,  capture  of,  by  Carthaginians, 
375. 

Serapeion,  library  of,  490. 

Seriphus,  minerals  of,  4. 


INDEX 


517 


Seven  vSages,  proverbs  of,  155. 
Sewers  in  cities,  477-478. 
Sheep  raising  in  Greece,  3. 
Shops  in  Periclean  Athens,  265. 
Shoremen  in  Attica,   114. 
Shrine  of  Initiation  at  Phyla,  214. 
Sibyl,  Apollo's  prophetess,  60. 
Sicily,    early    Cretan  colonies    in,    28 ; 
Greek    colonies   in,    61-62;    progress 
of,    in    intellectual    life,    186;    Phoe- 
nicians in,  187 ;  invasion  of,  by  Car- 
thaginians,   188;    Carthaginians   de- 
feated in,   189;   growth  and  develop- 
ment of,  after  battle  of  Himera,  205- 
211;    rise   of  republics  in,   211-212; 
prosperity  of,  after  474,  317;   Athe- 
nian   expedition    against,    318-321  ; 
Athenian  disaster  in,  a  crisis  in  Hel- 
lenic history,   321;   Carthaginian  in- 
vasion of  (409),  374-375;  cession  of 
greater  part  to  Carthaginians,   376; 
vicissitudes  of,  after  downfall  of  ty- 
ranny, 397-398;  events  in,  at  period 
of  Alexander  of  Macedon  and  later, 
454-455 ;    tyranny  of   Agathocles   in, 
455-456;       Carthaginians      expelled 
from,   by  Rome,   457 ;   results  to,  of 
Roman  conquest,  457. 
Sicyon,    tyranny  at    (670-560),   73-75; 
enters  Peloponnesian  league,  99 ;  in- 
clusion of,  in  Achaean  league,  469. 
Sigeum,  colony  of,  116;  taken  by  Per- 
sians,  164. 
Silver,   in   Greece,  4 ;   mined  by  Athe- 
nians at  Laurium,  404. 
Simonides  of  Amorgus,  poet,  131. 
Sinope,  Athenian  colony  in,  243. 
Siphnos,   177;  minerals  in,  4. 
Slavery,  development  of,  in  Hellas,  57 ; 
in  Crete,  82;  in  Lacedaemon,  90-91; 
in   Athens  at  time  of  Pericles,  263- 
265;    use    of,    in    mining,    404;    in 
Athens  in  4th  century,  406;  laboring 
conditions  approximating,    in   Alex- 
ander's empire,  471-472. 
Smyrna,   Aeolian  settlement,   42;  sani- 
tation at,  477. 
Socialistic   tendencies   in    4th   century, 

420. 
Social  organization,  in  Minoan  age,  24- 
25;   in  Crete,  81-82;    in  Sparta,  90- 
92;    in   Attica,    105-106;    in   Athens 
(479-461),    213-225;    in    Athens    at 
time  of  Pericles,  258-266 ;  as  revealed 
by    Sophocles,    286-288;    in    Athens 
in    4th    century,    400-410. 
Social  war,  384 
Sociology,  beginnings  of,  280. 


Socrates,  character  and  teachings  of, 
341-344;  desire  of,  for  exact  knowl- 
edge, 345 ;  sculptured  portrait  of, 
426;  influence  on  Xenophon,  430. 
Solon,  55,  68,  71;  acquisition  of  Sala- 
mis  by,  103,  111  ;  rise  of,  to  supreme 
power,  111;  reforms  of,  111-114; 
dissatisfaction  with  laws  of,  114; 
enforcement  of  laws  of,  by  Peisis- 
tratus,  115-116;  forms  of  verse  used 
by,  127 ;  one  of  the  Seven  Sages, 
155. 

Sophists,  period  of,  279-280;  nature 
vs.  convention  in  theory  of,  281 ;  de- 
generate, 340-341 ;  disgust  of  right- 
minded  with,  341. 

Sophocles,  Attic  dramatist  and  poet, 
284,  322 ;  religious  and  moral  ideas 
of  Periclean  age  as  expressed  by, 
284-291;  lessons  from,  291;  statue 
of,  in  Lateran  IMuseum,  426. 

Spain,   Phoenician  settlements  in,   187. 

Sparta,  supremacy  of,  in  Laconia,  84 ; 
culture  in,  in  7th  century,  84-85 ; 
wars  with  Messenia,  85-86;  land 
system  of,  86-87;  social  and  govern- 
mental system,  87-92 ;  perioecic 
towns,  92-93 ;  at  head  of  Pelopon- 
nesian league,  100;  appeal  of  Aris- 
tagoras  to,  164-165;  resistance  of,  to 
Persia,  171;  leadership  of,  against 
invasion  of  Xerxes,  1 79 ;  heroism  of 
men  of,  at  Thermopylae,  180;  con- 
ditions in,  at  conclusion  of  Persian 
wars,  193-194;  approaching  loss  of 
military  preponderance,  194;  revolt 
of  helots,  207-208;  fear  by,  of 
Athens,  a  reason  for  Peloponnesian 
war,  303;  activities  of,  in  war,  310- 
314,  320,  324-328;  as  successor  of 
Athens  in  leadership  of  eastern  Hel- 
las, 352  ff. ;  general  dissatisfaction 
with  leadership  of,  355-356;  peace 
of  Antalcidas  made  with  Persia, 
358-359;  climax  of  prosperity  of 
(379),  360-361;  end  of  supremacy 
of,  at  battle  of  Leuctra,  366,  367; 
ravaged  by  Philip  of  Macedon,  390; 
effects  of  Peloponnesian  war  on, 
394-397 ;  during  reign  of  Alexander, 
452.     Sec    also    Lacedaemon. 

State_,  the  Homeric,  45-46. 

States,  political  unions  of,  77-78,  80. 

Statues,  religion  expressed  in,  139-141 ; 
of  Pheidias  and  Praxiteles  con- 
trasted, 423-424 ;  at  Pergamum,  479- 
480.     See  Sculptures. 

Stoic  school  of  philosophy,  486-487 ;  a 


518 


INDEX 


religion,    487-488;    effects    of,    488- 
489. 

Stone  age.     See  Neolithic  age. 

Strategi.     See  Generals. 

Strong-man  theory  as  exemplified  by 
Philip  of  Macedon,  392. 

Strymon  river,   162. 

Susa,  capital  of  Persia,  161 ;  occupied 
by  Alexander,  448. 

Sybaris,  Achaean  colony,  60-61. 

Syracuse,  founding  of,  61-62;  Gelon 
becomes  tyrant  of,  188-189;  vast 
growth  of,  209;  republic  at,  212; 
growing  ambition  of,  317-318;  be- 
sieged by  Athenian  force,  320 ;  de- 
feat of  Athenians  by,  321 ;  period 
from  466  to  413,  374;  tyranny  of 
Dionysius  at,  375-380;  liberation  of, 
from  rule  of  tyrants,  380 ;  conditions 
at,  after  Peloponnesian  war,  397, 
398;  Archimedes'  work  at,  492-493. 
See  also  Sicily. 

Syria,  conquest  of,  by  Alexander,  447 ; 
becomes  a  Roman  province,  459. 

Tanagra,  battle  of,  236. 

Tarentum,  a  Dorian  colony,  61 ;  aris- 
tocratic government  at,  211;  condi- 
tion in  4th  century,  398 ;  preserves 
her  independence  of  Rome,  456-457; 
aided  by  Pyrrhus,  but  finally  forced 
to  surrender  to  Rome,  457. 

Tariff  reciprocity  between  Athens  and 
Chersonese,   403. 

Taurus,  Mount,  459. 

Taxation  of  laborers  in  Egypt,  471. 

Taygetus,  Mount,  minerals  of,  4,  39, 
92. 

Tegea,  Arcadian  city-state,  98 ;  failure 
of  Lacedaemonians  to  conquer,  99 ; 
temple  at,  427. 

Telesippe,  first  wife  of  Pericles,  293. 

Telesterion,    Eleusinian    shrine,    144. 

Temple  estates  in  Asia  Minor,  462-463, 
471. 

Temples,    Homeric,    49 ;    development 
of,    in    Greece,    137-138;    plans    of, 
138;     metopes    of,     139;     Athenian, 
after  Persian  invasion,  198;  built  in 
age    of    war    heroes,    231 ;    Pericles' 
plan  for  restoration  of  Hellenic,  267 ; 
architecture  of,  in  4th  century,  427; 
in    Priene,    475. 
Ten  Thousand,  march  of  the,  355. 
Terillus,  tyrant  of  Himcra,  189. 
Terpander,  Lesbian  musician,  84. 
Thales  of  Miletus,  151;  value  of  phil- 


osophic theory  of,   151-152;   one  of 
the  Seven  Sages,  155. 
Thaletas  of  Gortyn,   84. 
Thasos,  island  of,  4,  127 ;  Persian  con- 
qpest  of,   1 70 ;  revolt  of,  and  result- 
ing loss  of  freedom,  203. 
Theatre,  in  Periclean  age,  296,  297. 
Theatrocracy,    growth    of,    at    Athens, 

330. 
Thebes,  federal  union  organized  by,  78, 
80;  submits  to  Persia,   170;   growth 
of,  to  power,   327;   freeing  of,  from 
Spartan  yoke,  361 ;  builds  up  Boeo- 
tian   league,    363 ;    self-assertion    of, 
365 ;      defeats      Peloponnesians      at 
Leuctra,  366;   period  of  ascendancy 
of,   366-371 ;  results  to,  of  battle  of 
Mantinea,   371-372;   estimate  of  as- 
cendancy    of,     372 ;     education     of 
Philip  of  IMacedon  in,  383 ;  conquest 
and  punishment  of,  by  Philip,  390; 
taken  by  Alexander,  446. 
Themistocles,  elected  archon  of  Athens, 
167;  patriotism  and  wisdom  of,  167; 
improvement    of    Peiraeus    by,    167- 
168;    opponent   of    Aristeides,    H? ; 
naval    decree    of     (482),     177-178; 
directing      spirit      in      preparations 
against    Xerxes,    179;    in    command 
of    Hellenic    force    against    Xerxes, 
181-183;    craftiness   of,    194;    forti- 
fication    of     Athens     by,     197-198; 
persuades    Athenians    to    build    and 
fortify    Peiraeus,    198-199;    restora- 
tion  of   farms  and  vineyards   inau- 
gurated  by,    200-201 ;    broad  states- 
manship of,   201-202;    false  charges 
against,     205;     end    of,    206;     esti- 
mate of  genius  of,  206;   social  side 
of,    217;    wife    of,    220;    as    patron 
of  art,  228. 
Theocritus,  Sicilian  poet,  482,  497. 
Theophrastus,    successor   of    Aristotle, 

442. 
Thcopompus,    historian,    quoted,    398; 
pupil    of    Isocrates,    434;    work    of, 
434-435. 
Theramenes,  Athenian  leader,  324;  in- 
curs hatred   of   Critias  and  is  exe- 
cuted, 354. 
Thermopylae,  battle  of,   180. 
Theron,   ruler  of  Avragas,    189;   helps 
in     defeat     of     Carthaginians     at 
Himera,     189;    growth    of    Acragas 
under,   210. 
Tlicscum,  building  of,  230-231. 
Theseus,   king  of  Attica,   103. 
Thesmothetac,  office  of,  104. 


INDEX 


519 


Thespis,    first   dramatic   writer,    145. 

Thessaly,  horses  in,  4;  neolithic  ob- 
jects in,  9  n. ;  progress  in  culture 
in,  15;  held  by  Aeolians,  26;  use  of 
iron  in,  38;  the  home  of  minstrel 
predecessors  of  Homer,  42 ;  position 
of,  at  time  of  Xerxes'  invasion, 
178  n.;  power  of  Thebes  over,  368, 
370;  mastery  of  Philip  of  Macedon 
over,  384;  conditions  in,  at  period 
of  Peloponncsian  war,  390-400. 

Thetes,  social  and  economic  condition 
of,  in  age  of  Pericles,  261. 

Thirty,  rule  of  the,  at  Athens,  353-354. 

Thirty  Years'  Peace,  239. 

Thrace,  minerals  in,  4;  worship  of 
Dionysus  in,  143;  Persians  at- 
tempt invasion  of  Greece  through, 
170;  march  of  Xerxes  through,  179; 
mastery  of  Philip  of  Macedon  over' 
384. 

Thracian  sea,  early  settlements  on, 
63. 

Thrasybulus,  Athenian  patriot,  324, 
354. 

Thucydides,  account  by,  of  fortifica- 
tion of  Peiraeus,  198-199;  esti- 
mate of  genius  of  Themistocles  by, 
206;  enemy  of  Pericles,  244;  ban- 
ishment of,  245;  History  of  Pelo- 
ponncsian War  by,  300  n. ;  quoted, 
311;  belief  of,  in  oracles,  339;  life 
and  character  of  work,  344-345; 
desire  of,  for  exact  knowledge,  345 ; 
contrasted  with  the  modern  histori- 
an,  345-346;    purpose   of,   346-347. 

Thurii,  founding  of,  246;  as  a  model 
city,   246;    Roman   alliance   of,   457. 

Timocracy  of  heavy  infantry  in  At- 
tica,  76-77,   106,    108-111. 

Timoleon  of  Corinth,  Liberator  of 
Syracuse,   380;    death   of,   455. 

Timomachus  of  Byzantium,  painter, 
483  n. 

Tin,    from    Britain,    63. 

Tiribazus,   satrap,   359. 

Tiryns,  palace  at,  10;  progress  in 
culture  at,  15;   city  walls  at,  21. 

Tissaphernes,  satrap  of  Sardis,  iZi, 
325. 

"Tomb   of   Athens,"    22. 

Tombs,  of  Minoan  age,  10,  22;  bee- 
hive, 22-23;  erection  of,  427. 

Tortoise,   coin  called,    67. 

Transition    period    in    art,    227. 

"  Treasury   of   Atreus,"    22. 


-  Trials    for    homicide    in    Attica,    109- 
110.     See  Laws, 
Tribes,   division  of  population  of  At- 
tica   into,    119. 
Trierarchy,   captaincy   of   trireme,   200 
n. 

Triptolemus,  mythical  king  of  Eleusis 
364.  ' 

Trittys,  political  division  in  Attica 
106,   118-119. 

Troezen,  alliance  of,  with  Athens 
236. 

Troy,  palace  at,  10;  an  early  leader 
m   culture,    11,    15. 

Tyranny,  transition  from  aristocracy 
to,  72-73;  of  Cypsellidae  at  Cor- 
inth, 73;  at  Sicyon,  73-74;  general 
character  of,  75;  redress  of  legal 
and  political  wrongs  under,  76; 
usually  short-lived,  76;  of  Peisis- 
tratidae  in  Attica,  114-116;  in 
Syracuse,    360-379. 

Tyre,    captured   by   Alexander,   447. 

Tyrtaeus,  Spartan  poet,  85,  86;  forms 
of  verse  used  by,    126-127. 

Umbrians,  wars  of  Rome  with,  456. 

Vases,     of    Kamares     ware,     11,     12; 

paintings   on,   54,    56,   65,    1.42,    147, 

260,     311;     paintings     of     time     of 

Peisistratus,    115. 
Vegetation   and   plant    life    of  ancient 

Greece,    3-4. 
Veii,    conquered    by   Rome,    456. 
Vergil,   prototype  of  Aencid  of,   498. 
Verse.     Sec   Poetry. 
Village,    character   of    Greek,    70. 
Vivisection,    early    practice    of,    495. 

Walls    of    cities,    in    Mycenaean    age, 

19,  21. 
War-archon    at    Athens,    104. 
Warfare  in  Late  Minoan  age,    19. 
War  heroes,   age  of  the,  213-233. 
Water   supply  of  cities,   477. 
Weights   and   measures,    Athenian,    in 

age    of    Pericles,    242 ;    in    Aetolian 

and  Achaean   leagues,  470. 
Wheat,  price  of,   in  4th  century,  405 ; 

Egyptian,    464. 
Wine,   export  trade   in,   of  Athenians, 

404. 
Women,   among  Homeric  Greeks,   51  ; 

in    Sparta,    89-90;    in    society    and 

in    literature   of    7th    and    6th   cen- 


520 


INDEX 


turies,  130-134;  social  standing  of, 
at  Athens  (479-461),  218-219;  un- 
domestrc,  219-220;  emancipated 
220-221 ;  social  forces  for  seclusion 
of,  221-222;  status  of,  in  Periclean 
age,  287-288,  332 ;  restrictions  on 
freedom  of,  332-333 ;  varying  at- 
titudes of,  under  new  conditions, 
333-334;  intellectual  agitation  for 
rights  of,  335,  337;  deterioration 
of  Spartan,  395 ;  position  in  Athe- 
nian household  in  4th  century,  408; 
in    Plato's  Republic,   440. 

Wood,   early   statues  of,    139-140. 

Writing,  in  Minoan  age,  10,  13;  serv- 
ices of  Phoenicians  in  connection 
with,  35 ;  introduction  of,  in  Greece, 
124-125. 


Xanthippus,  Athenian  statesman, 
174,    175,    184,    195. 

Xenophanes,    teachings   of,    153. 

Xenophon,  Hellenic  a  by,  301  n. ; 
recollections  of  Socrates  of,  342 ; 
account  by,  of  expedition  of  Cyrus 
and  retreat  of  Ten  Thousand,  355 ; 
quoted,  361 ;  on  battle  of  Mantinea, 
371-372;  on  conditions  in  Sparta, 
396 ;  Economist  of,  402 ;  opinion  of 
women,  408 ;  account  of  life  and 
writings  of,    430-431. 

Xerxes,  son  of  Darius,  178;  expedi- 
tion of,  against  Greece,  178;  crosses 


Hellespont,  179;  at  Thermopylae 
and  Artemisium,  180;  defeat  of,  at 
Salamis,  183-184;  returns  to  Asia, 
184;    death   of,    237. 

Youth,  training  of,  in  Crete,  82 ; 
Spartan  training  of,  87-88 ;  in 
Plato's  Republic,  440. 

Zakro,     excavations    at.     11     n. 

Zaleucus,   law   code   of,    61,    71-72. 

Zancle,  founding  of,  60 ;  renamed 
Messene,   188. 

Zeno,   teacher  of  Pericles,   292. 

Zenodatus,  librarian  at  Alexandria, 
491. 

Zenon,  founder  of  Stoic  school  of 
philosophy,    486-487. 

Zeugitae,  military  class  of,  in  Attica, 
108;  archonship  opened  to,  250; 
condition  of,  in  age  of  Pericles, 
261 ;  reason  for  conservatism  of, 
262. 

Zeus,    worship    of,    21,    40,    105,    106; 
in    religion    of    Homer,    48 ;    shrine 
of,     at    Lycosura    in    Arcadia,    98 
temple  to  Olympian,  at  Athens,  139 
reputed  founder  of  Olympic  games, 
146;    oracle    of,    at    Dodona,     149 
place  of,  in  Greek  cosmogony,   150 
temple   to,    at   Olympia,   231;    Alex- 
ander proclaimed  son  of,   447,   467. 

Zoology,  as  treated  by  Aristotle,  442 ; 
study   of,    in   Hellenistic   age,    495. 


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